Blog Art! The Death of Email (or Death by Email)

> Without having done the necessary thinking or research, and
hence
> setting myself up for pretty fast invalidation!, I’m inclined to
> think national sovereignty is not undergoing a crisis so much as
a
> transformation, one that indeed has had, as you outline,
devasting
> affects for many of those under the rule of sovereign power - but
> this is different from sovereignty itself having a crisis.

With the same caveat -I would tend to agree. One can suspect that
even globally operating multi-nationals need some body “on the ground”
to organize local infra-structure. In fact many modern “nation-states”
were formed as a result of colonial governmental structures which were
apparently developed in order to organize and stabilize the
activities of internationally “free” operating “colonial companies”
-such as the Dutch and British (East and West) “India Companies”.

On the other hand, there is also the relationship between (local)
ruler and ruled. This has been historically justified (in some theories)
by claiming an (implied) contract of mutual protection and support. In
a society of free individuals (the bourgeois ideal) this relationship
becomes problematic as the individuals become self sufficient and do
not wish to serve.

In this context, the concept of “insurance” is interesting -because
it is a purely monetary relationship. The company “cares” for the
insured party in times of need -but there is no “service” (outside the
payment of premium) in return.

Perhaps as an (unconscious?) extension of this purely monetary
economic relationship -many local governments seem to be considering
themselves to be geographically based “local companies” who provide
infra-structure in order to create conditions which are intended to
attract companies to participate. Although at present local populations
are probably largely formed on historical grounds -with freedom of
movement (such as for “members” of the European club) -then populations
will presumably gravitate to where conditions are most satisfactory
(probably upsetting the conditions as a result). Maybe (in some cases)
even large “transfer fees” will be needed to attract key personnel -just
as with the “local” football club (or university?). In key locations
where competition is high -then “fringe benefits” (such as landscape,
climate, culture, entertainment, etc.) may be essential elements in
attracting the desired participants/staff.

Survival of the nation-state (as economic player) may not be a
problem. The main problem could concern which logic should determine the
extent of the geographic location. The recent history of ethnic wars
shows that this is an extremely difficult and dangerous question.

As some nation-states fall apart -others are building conglomerates.
The question of Cathedrals and Bazaars apparently remains central -both
between the players and (as Ned points out) even within them.

Perhaps it is interesting to speculate how -free from real practical
restraints, we might organize a global system: What kind of
“players” would be required to create a viable and acceptable social and
economic environment? Do we require one (or more) super-powers to
preserve the balance of power -or can we really survive with a probable
power struggle among competing equal players? Could we survive
(economically) without competition? Considering the behaviour of some
local governments -what could we expect from a global government -how
could it be democratically organized and how can we protect ourselves
from it? Is representational (parliamentary), economic (consumerism) or
participatory democracy (activism) preferable -how should (enivitable)
conflicts be resolved? Should it be centrally organized, locally
organized or totally unorganized? Minority, majority, consensus or
conflict based rule?

Nice to read of something kind of  familiar for a change, like Fitzroy. I’d be interested in reading  your next instalment though, because your title and a number of points raised offer much … and leave us waiting for the delivery!

The United States defines the ideology of globalisation and
Corporations are the main catalyst.

Here, I’m not sure. For a start, and as others on ::fc:: have raised
previously with respect to your gun-in-the-head swipes at the US,
your argument is not consistent. If, for instance, national
sovereignty has declined with the onset of globalisation - and this,
I think, is an argument that needs careful theorising and empirical
work - then surely the ‘US’ is a diverse, asynchronous
socio-political entity that is also subject to such changes? What
you’re hedging at is quite specific institutions I suspect, and I
think your argument would do better to name them upfront. It’s
pretty hard to argue that nation-states are defined by hegemonic
unity.

As for Corporations as the main catalyst - this too, I think, needs
to be tempered by considering other forces at work. Castells is one
among many (and indebted too many!) that recognises a prehistory to
corporate power predicated by the internationalisation and history of
communcations media & transport technologies - arguably the hardware
that makes possible the transnationalisation of corporations along,
of course, with that other key catalyst: the mobilisation of labour
and the attendant mingling of cultures.

So, in short, too short a take on what could be called the economic
sovereignty, as distinct from the popular sovereignty, of US
corporations and supranationally governed institutions (UN, IMF,
World Bank, etc).

Capitalism has always been international and relied on
internationalism to expand, but this has entered a new stage.

Here, I’m curious as to how you see the figurations of this ‘new
stage’. And, more than anything, I’m eagerly awaiting how you go
about articulating the historical everydayness of Fitzroy with
globality, beyond the waves of migration outline as characterising
that suburb.

> As Morley argues ?maintenance of national sovereignty and identity
>is becoming increasingly difficult, as the unities of economic and
>cultural production and consumption become increasingly
>transnational?.

Morley, of course, is reiterating a common line (one of many that
make up a close to plagiarised book, if you’re drawing on Home
Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity. Try and find a few lines
in there that aren’t a quote or paraphrase! Very handy for his
footnotes and synthesis of debates though.)
And it’s too simplistic a line, in my view. National sovereignty,
in its *modern* form, is closely articulated with institutions of the
state and the territory of the nation. This said, I think it’s
dubious for any post-colonial nation-state to assume ever to have
extinguished the sovereignty of the colonising power. While
currencies, populations, industries, legal systems and so forth may
be regulated by the nation, the residual power of a colonised or
displaced colonial imaginary is not to be underestimated and still
commands considerable authority: the cringe factor has still not
evacuated this nation’s culture. (And as Keating knew so well, for a
politician of this country, the relationship between culture and
economy is a mutually constitutive one.) In this respect, I think
it’s dubious to assume a history of absolute sovereignty for a nation
state like Australia. We still have monarchical rule, after all.

Without having done the necessary thinking or research, and hence
setting myself up for pretty fast invalidation!, I’m inclined to
think national sovereignty is not undergoing a crisis so much as a
transformation, one that indeed has had, as you outline, devasting
affects for many of those under the rule of sovereign power - but
this is different from sovereignty itself having a crisis.

National sovereignty is articulating itself through and with a
different informational and cultural architecture, in both material
and immaterial ways. The media event of the Sydney Olympics
demonstrated that national difference is as important as ever in the
quest to turn the wheels of capital accumulation, which has always
depended upon the differentiation of commodity objects - something
the unity-under-negotiation of the nation has managed to do since its
inception .

So, while the corporations that own the mode of production may have
become subject to transnational corporate usurptation, the identity
representations (if not interpellations - and there, sure, is a bit
of a key difference, though one might argue that representation is
conditioned by the possibilty of interpellation…) are still very
much about national difference. While the nation-state (with the
hyphen) as an entity aligned with national institutions and
geographic territory has lost some of its grasp of sovereignty with
the advent of, as you point out, the floating of the dollar and
corporatisation of public institutions, the sovereignty - as a
‘victory of one side over the other, a victory that makes the one
sovereign and the other the subject’ (Hardt & Negri) - of the
postmodern nation state still takes on national forms. The cultural
life of industries within the imaginary realm of the nation are
still, and necessarily, embedded in the empirical & aesthetic
multiplicity of social practices, and I’d hazzard to suggest a sort
of sovereignty of phenomenology is occurring at this level - or, more
simply, the rule of perception bounded by the materiality of
everydayness.

In the paper I posted to ::fc:: a few weeks back, I was starting
work that sought, in ways perhaps similar to yours, to demonstrate
that sovereignty is something up for grabs, but still something that
takes on figurations within the nation. Processes of deregulation
and so forth have freed up the space of sovereignty within the
nation. It’s what I’d call the materiality of virtuality. Something
that is highly contingent upon the loosening up of otherwise
sedentary variables. This may sound like a neoliberalist apology,
but there are possibilities for alternatives within such a
transformative space. Education is one. The legitimacy granted to
denationalised political subjects at a supranational level might hold
a symbolic authority, but this remains illegitimate until it is
successfully articulated with the symbolic and actual structures and
lives within the nation. The future of representative democracy, if
it isn’t a complete historical farce, is dependent on such processes
of recognition *within* the nation. Herein lies the present
condition for a future democracy, at least in its representative form.

The New Frontier

Hi Fibre, I have finally written something serious for once. If you have
any comments, then they would be more than appreciated. It is about
Australia and globalisation and Fitzroy and technology. It is a little
rough, but then again so are you lot.

(sorry no footnotes in email)
The New Frontier

It is perhaps surprising for rest of the world to learn, and for some
Australians, that in the industrialised world, Australia is one of the most
urbanised societies. Most Australians live in large cities with 64% of the
population in the capitols cities, 17% live in rural areas, and the rest in
large towns. At the time of Federation, it was almost exactly the opposite
with most of the population living in rural areas. During the 20th Century,
rural employment dramatically declined and industry and people flocked to
the cities. The cities became vibrant booming industrial hubs that
attracted immigrant workers from all around the world. In the post-war
period, Australia doubled its population in a generation, bringing migrants
from England and Ireland, Greece and Italy, and later Asia, creating
perhaps the most multi-cultural society of all the advanced industrial
economies.

The demographic realities of Australia are often in stark contrast to our
resilient popular identity. This identity, which circulates in our popular
media and press, is one that insists that we are a still a masculine,
Anglo-Saxon, and laconic people who live an idealic and relaxed lifestyle
in wide-open spaces. From Patrick White to Frederick McCubbin, from Banjo
Patterson to the movies that spectacularly broke into the US and European
markets in the 70’s and 80’s, the mythology of an Australia connected to
the bush is as resilient as a frill necked lizard baking itself in the sun.

In the late 80’s and early 90’s under Federal Labor with Paul Keating and
Bob Hawke, the ‘idea of Australia’ became a vigorous national debate that
centred on multiculturalism, deregulation, republicanism, and the dalliance
with ‘the world stage’. We opened our industries to international
competition, deregulated our currency and financial system, sold off nearly
all our public industries and through our arts bodies and galleries,
attempted to foster a new more inclusive national culture that recognised
the many faces that make up our national neighbourhoods.

What resulted is an Australia of the late 20the and early 21st that is
radically different to the country that characterised us for most of the
last century. It resulted in a much more ‘global nation’, one that no
longer seemed to suffer from a ‘tyranny of distance’ much more open to the
rest of the world and one with a number of new domestic frontiers.

The frontier, as articulated in the Bernard Salt Report, The Big Shift, is
no longer the great post-war middle suburbs based on material and social
egalitarianism. The middle suburbs are where masses of people settled
during the long post-war boom, from the second world war to the early 70’s.
The long boom, so well articulated by one of the great historians of the
20th Century, Eric Hobsbawn, was a period of growth that the world had
never known. The output of manufactures quadrupled between the early 1950’s
and the early 1970’s and world trade in manufactured items grew tenfold.
Australia became during this time perhaps the world’s most middle-class
society with over half our population situated in the middle strata.
Working people for the first time had a disposable income and skills that
could afford them a place in the middle class. An income that could buy
cars and a brick-veneer house in the suburbs, clothes and even luxury food
items imported from half way across the globe. In another generation, this
would have only been a dream.

“What had once been luxury, became the expected standard of comfort, at all
events in rich countries: the refrigerator, the private washing machine,
the telephone”.

The image of Australia in the long boom of 1950’s and 60’s is one of
prosperity and comfort, of conservatism and ‘wake in fright’ conformity, of
high-tariffs, restrictive censorship, and extraordinarily bad public
architecture. It is a time when people moved out of the inner suburbs in
their droves, from the damp and cramped houses of the inner-city ’struggle
towns’ so well documented in Janet McCalman’s oral history of Richmond, to
the spacious comfort of the suburbs.

However, in the Australia of this century, the frontier is no longer the
middle suburbs of Barry McKenzie or the bush of Paul Hogan. The new
frontiers are at the fringes (or the ‘edge city’, as described by Joel
Garreau)) and the inner-cities. Bernard Salt goes as far as to assert that
we are entering a ‘third Australian culture’ or a country defined by the
new demographic of the beach, the inner-cities, and the fringes.

This project in a small way seeks to comprehend one of these new frontiers.
This frontier is in the oldest suburb in one of the countries largest
cities. The suburb is Fitzroy in Melbourne, the cities first suburb.
Fitzroy, like Sydney’s Marackville, or the West End in Brisbane, is
arguable one of the country most diverse in terms of lifestyle, income
distribution, and ethnicity. They are areas with stark contrast between old
economies and new, between small ethnic business’s described in Jock
Collins (et.al.) seminal study of small business in Marackville A Shop Full
of Dreams, to the new middle classes living in the perfumed remains of the
industrial era.

Like the broader city and country in which it is situated, Fitzroy is a
suburb with many beginnings and many identities. For many new migrants,
Fitzroy is the initial encounter with Australia. First, it was the Italians
and Greeks, and then it was the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Africans. During
last century, the idea of Australia became one as a destination for all
comers from all parts of the globe. Stuart McIntyre one of the countries
most pre-eminent historians claims that a multiplicity of beginnings
“further undermined the foundational significance of 1788″.

“The blurring of origins turned Australian history into a story of
journeyings and arrivals, shared by all and endlessly repeated”

Fitzroy is a suburb with many beginnings, now in its third century. It has
changed from its roots as a somewhat rough and insular working class suburb
into one of the countries most diverse, tolerant, unequal, and curious
suburbs. Dennis O’Rourke in his recent documentary Cunnamulla (2001)
portrays an outback town as the very embodiment of Australian contemporary
history. In another generation, perhaps this was true. The bush and rural
economies have taken an inordinate share of domestic economic restructuring
linked to globalisation. This has resulted in rural decline and the rise of
the far right in the Australian political scene. The inner cities are
another country, a country for better or worse that increasingly looks like
the rest of the world.

What is Globalisation

It is perhaps a long bow to draw, to leap between local experiences within
an inner-city Australian community to the global discourses that are the
historical definitive ideas of our time: to leap between local economies
and day-to-day human interaction, to that which effects a good deal of
humanity. However, the argument could also be made that it is impossible to
do one without the other, it is impossible to understand the global without
understanding to some degree your own relative cultural and geographical
viewpoint. It is within local communities in which most of us live and
globalisation needs to be understood in human dimensions.

As the meta-structures of the history of a nation slowly erode, we are left
with small histories and a myriad of voices. As Richard Falk, the author of
Predatory Globalisation asserts, the long period of Westphalia
international relations is nearing an end, and we need to understand the
forces beyond the nation state. Globalisation is not one thing, nor is it
mono-directional; it is a convergence of forces, both local and national,
both policy driven and technological driven, both corporate driven and
community driven.

This is not of course the first time the world has witnessed large global
movements as there was the free-trade movement emanating from Britain in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and colonialism and
socialism were enormous globalising forces. Before the first world war,
Western Europe controlled most of the world’s landmass, and after the
second world war; communism controlled two thirds of the world’s people.

The dominant characteristic of today’s globalisation is free trade, the
liberal democratic, capitalist mode of production, new communication
technologies, and the ascendancy of large multi-nationals. Globalisation is
heavily driven by the developed world’s private sector, and a shift from
the nation-state sovereignty to transnational actors from both
non-government and the private sector. The United States defines the
ideology of globalisation and Corporations are the main catalyst. Many of
these corporations are involved in cultural production thus creating their
own world culture and value system. This value system is based on
consumerism and the triumph of the individual over society. There is
likewise a growing interdependence between nations as they are drawn into a
global economy and culture.

It must be reiterated that globalisation is not an umbrella term, but is a
very specific thing that is the direct result of a number of government
policies and technological innovations. The policies by national
governments from the early 70’s helped the spread of globalisation and many
argue that this has resulted in a number of the sovereign powers of the
state being supplanted by transnational forces. Capitalism has always been
international and relied on internationalism to expand, but this has
entered a new stage. As Morley argues “maintenance of national sovereignty
and identity is becoming increasingly difficult, as the unities of economic
and cultural production and consumption become increasingly transnational”.

<stop>

Thanks
>The enormous amounts of information available to us all thanks to the Net
>is a wonderful thing, it is not a problem. It is how we deal with the
>anxiety it can create that can be a problem. Perhaps the cure for
>information obesity is simply a sensible diet…

Perhaps we are entering a post-information age, or a time when too much
information is as disabling as not having enough. It was only in the 60’s
(so I am told), that the Communist part had a printing press hidden in a
shed in Bendigo waiting for the revolution. And the crusty old bloke that
had the skills to run the thing, was one of the most important people in
the organisation. Perhaps now we are going too far in the other direction.
We have so much information, that we are disabled by it. Disable the
illusion, go to the library.

When I grew up in Tasmania in the 80’s, we only had two television
stations, the ABC and a commercial station. There were also only two radio
stations, the ABC and another station that played near-death reflective
tunes. Both stations ended at 11.00PM each night. The only newspapers were
the Advocate, a parochial Christian luvin rag, and the mainland Herald Sun.

Tasmania is also perhaps one of the most democratic parts of the nation,
certainly one of the more politicised regions (I love the way they nail the
election candidates portraits to the gum trees). I grew up through the
Franklin Dam debate as well as the Wesley Vale Pulp mill. The later was a 2
billion dollar development in one of the most economically depressed
regions of the country. There were pro-mill advertisements on television
every 10 minutes or so on television for weeks, and almost no opposition
media. The mill was never built, the people didn’t want it. They used the
political tools at their disposal to stop it. The media didn’t matter.

I also remember that we used to have a media black out a couple of day
before an election. This was so people could stop and think about their
choices. They made these choices in a number of ways, who they trust, the
policies that were important, the party that most supported their class or
had looked after them in the past.

We live in a culture, it is bigger than us. America has just taken over the
surface of Australia (and the superficial). We have our own hierarchies
based on our own history and meritocracies. We are importing McDemocracy,
the cheap popularist 5 minute version of the US (thorough its media), the
the veneer of democracy. It resembles democracy like McDonalds resembles food!

There are a lot of globalisations happening, the media is just one of them.
People have personal, and cultural, and family histories. The media doesn’t
understand this. Media people deal with daily generalisations, this is
their craft. I see a world in the future when there is just so much media,
where everyone knows everything about all the evils of the world, but it
changes nothing. Media subversion is very important now, but only for the
next five minutes. We also need to understand our democratic tools.

There has been a lot or research done that supports the thesis that
advertising is not cost effective: that the media only exists because of
its duopoly relationship with advertisers (in which we all pay for in the
products that we buy). Perhaps we could also find our selves in a similar
situation with media and subversive information. A duopoly between
corporate main-stream media and subversive information. We are all so
tied-up with cold-war ideas of restricted information flows, that we have
become obsessed with the process of subversion rather than the outcomes. We
only understand the popular surface of democracy, rather that its inner
workings. I am not sure where all this goes, but just get the vibe that
things are a changing man. I’m an educated bloke, I have always filtered
information. Perhaps the key is more education, not more information.
Information is making us stupid, it is oppressing us. My life is a series
of media releases with a string through the middle.

Anyway, I am going to the Napier Hotel now in Fitzroy, it is 10.30 on
Friday. If anyone is in the area, drop in and have a beer.

warm regards,

I have a few thoughts on email lists, and email, and information, and too
much of all the above. I wonder just how ‘democratic’ the world will become
when everyone has email and everyone can publish? If everyone talks at
once, then no one can hear. There are already too many books, too many web
sites, and too many lists. Too much information means no time to think and
no time to think means no knowledge. Just cause someone publishes, does it
means that we all have too? This is the American individual view of
democracy. There are just so many assumptions being made about the Internet
and democracy that we need to sit down and have a glass of whiskey and
think about it. Sure, it doesn’t take a genius to ask who decides who
publishes, but it is also equally naive to assume that the free flow of
information is leading towards a more equitable existence. The opposite
true. The world is more unequal now than it has ever been in history,
perhaps 200: 1 from richest country to poorest country (say Switzerland and
Mozambique).
Now that I told you this (I am not a theorist so it is true, I have
evidence What are you going to do about it?

Information obesity is like hamburger obesity. It is American.

Date: Thursday, October 14, 1999, 5:06:30 PM

Subject: instructive critisism

===8<==============Original message text===============

Mr Alan,

I do belive dear Allan that I was simply retturning an e-mail with your

header still atttached. Sorrry that I didn’t correct it

for you.

The word “critisism” is the correct historical spelling of the word. It

comes from the Greek word “critis”. Critis was the Greek

god of lesbian tendencies, but the work has lost its correct meaning and

correct spelling over the years.

I think that it is a much more difficult skill to communicate than to obviate. We already have an enormously sophisticated English language to describe digital media, it doesn’t need it’s own

language. This is why terms such as VR are so devoid of meaning, even though the actual product may not be. I think the term ‘cave’ to describe the new VR thingee is apt. I’ll be sure to throw some chicken bones in next time I pass by.

Subject: Labor and Multimedia.

===8<==============Original message text===============

As Victoria has now changed hands from a Liberal to a Labor government, it will be interesting to see what is in store for the multimedia
“industry” in this state. Kennett’s government often abused the modernist mantra of ‘technology as progress’ or the idea that imbedded in technology is its own agency…as opposed to the more socially progressive direction of Labor ie. you have to be able to afford a computer in the first place.

Does this mean no more “minister for multimedia” or does it mean “e-merge” will finally arrive? Does this mean that there is a possibility
now that those of us who are interested in “thinking” about interactive media can distance ourselves from “industry battler” types who are more interested in revenue generation?

Is Victoria finally on the move and can we now think about technology a little more sophisticatedly that the often simplistic logic that just because a new model Falcon comes out every two years, that we are rocketing ahead? How will the funding bodies change?

something to be aware of I ’spose.