This strikes me as appropriate to the Unrev initiative...
>X-Sender: fheyligh@pop.vub.ac.be
>Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 13:09:52 +0200
>To: gbrain@listserv.vub.ac.be (Global Brain Discussion)
>From: Francis Heylighen <fheyligh@vub.ac.be>
>Subject: Fwd: Charles Ess's criticisms of the Global Brain idea
>Sender: owner-gbrain@listserv.vub.ac.be
>Reply-To: gbrain@listserv.vub.ac.be
>
>>From: "Parker Rossman" <prossman@socket.net>
>>To: "Francis Heylighen" <fheyligh@vub.ac.be>
>>Cc: "Charles Ess" <cmess@lib.drury.edu>
>>Subject: Fw: My Belgrium workshop Germans bellieves in the idea
>>Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 07:21:39 -0500
>>X-Priority: 3
>>
>>Francis, here are some questions you should add to your list. Charles Ess
>>is a brilliant man you should invite to the big BG conference as it
>>emerges. And have you been in touch withg Floridi?
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: <mailto:cmess@lib.drury.edu>Charles Ess
>>To: <mailto:prossman@socket.net>Parker Rossman
>>Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 11:33 AM
>>Subject: Re: My Belgrium workshop Germans bellieves in the idea
>>
>>Parker
>>without wanting to dampen your enthusiasm - but really and truly, assist
>>with your project with what is intended as constructive criticism - let
>>me point out the following.
>>
>>As you no doubt know, there are enormous obstacles to any notion of a
>>globally-distributed information technology of the sort described - the
>>following are the ones that seem most recalcitrant to me:
>>a) the Digital Divide - at a first level, in terms of
>>infrastructure. (For a recent paper by Oxford philosopher Luciano
>>Floridi, on this topic, see his address to UNESCO's sub-commission on
>>ethics of the information society:
>><http://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~floridi/pdf/eaie.pdf>.) As Floridi points
>>out, two billion people have no access to electricity, and four billion
>>people earn less than $1500 a year. And so far as I am aware, the
>>Digital Divide continues to get worse at the global level, not better.
>>b) Beyond the infrastructure and economic issues - there are digital
>>divides at a deeper level (in my view), namely, at the level of interest
>>and culture. As especially field work with rural peoples, including
>>indigenous peoples, makes clear - even _if_ IT becomes affordable and
>>available, their interests are not always aligned with those of us in the
>>first world who, however well-intentioned we may be, may well be engaged
>>in a form of "computer-mediated colonization" in our efforts to develop
>>and export these technologies in the name of helping others.
>>(I'm especially familiar with efforts to introduce IT in rural areas, and
>>among indigenous peoples: I'm attaching an introduction to a themed issue
>>on this topic that will be published in September that provides a more
>>detailed examination of the challenges.)
>>c) in particular, the vision of a Global Brain, whatever its promise for
>>information-sharing, problem-solving and the like - it also appears to
>>contain within it two paradoxical elements, ones that run directly
>>counter to its optimistic intentions:
>>c.i) most postmodernists, beginning with Foucault, have developed rather
>>extensive critiques of such visions of ubiquitous technologies, seeing in
>>them the same "dialectic of Enlightenment" identified by Adorno and
>>Horkheimer in the wake of their experience with fascism: the trajectory
>>towards a global/total technology/overview/encyclopedia runs the danger
>>of becoming (for postmodernists - but not me - indeed, they will
>>inevitably become) the "Panopticon," the perfect technology of
>>surveillance and control. (In the bumper-sticker versions of PM: the
>>total becomes totalizing and thus totalitarian.) I am known as a critic
>>of PM - but these critiques of technology have so shaped the discourse of
>>the past fifteen years or so, especially with regard to computer-mediated
>>communication that they must be responded to, in my view, if one is to
>>make rhetorical and real headway against them.
>>(Fortunately, in my view, this situation is changing somewhat: I have an
>>overview of the literature coming out in the Blackwell's Guide to the
>>Philosophy of Information and Computing, hopefully by the end of this
>>year - if you'd like to see an advance copy, I'd be happy to send it to you.)
>>c.ii) (this is where the German philosophers would _really_ weigh in,
>>experts as they are in Chinese language and culture) - To reiterate and
>>instantiate the point about cultural differences ("b," above): the
>>cultural differences between East and West (however problematic these
>>terms are upon closer inspection) remain enormous and perhaps
>>incommensurable. "Problem-solving" as a way of justifying investment in
>>technology is largely modern and Western, and specifically American (it
>>goes back to Jefferson and Madison, who argued that democracy can
>>overcome the natural limits of a 50-square-mile state via the
>>communication technologies of roads and canals). No other people, so far
>>as surveys demonstrate (e.g., the Nomura survey), embrace technology with
>>as much enthusiasm and as little criticism as Americans. And on the
>>basis of precious little data: there's no good evidence - according to
>>Saul Fisher of the Mellon Foundation, for example, who conducted a
>>meta-study on the topic - that the 20 years of enormous nvestment in
>>technology in education has actually made any measurable difference in
>>learning outcomes.
>>Europeans (among others) tend to be more critical - so as to use
>>"citizens' committees," for example, to determine whether or not new
>>technologies - such as genetically modified foods - should be introduced
>>(many European countries have said 'no' to this one).
>>What counts as a "problem" and how it is to be solved, moreover, varies
>>enormously along cultural lines - especially between Western/
>>progressivist / materially-oriented / individualist /high risk tolerant /
>>medium- to low- power distance / feminine (more gender equality)
>>countries and Eastern / collectivist / face-saving - and thus low risk
>>tolerant / high power distance / masculine (more gender inequality) countries.
>>In particular, what will be the lingua franca of the global brain?
>>Chinese will become the majority language on the web by 2007. Do you
>>really want a vision of a single, culturally homogenous "global brain" as
>>the engine of problem-solving - in which case, somebody's
>>culture/language/communication preferences/values, etc. will inevitably
>>dominate, erasing cultural differences for anyone who wants/needs/feels
>>compelled to jump aboard: would you be happy if the Global Brain were in
>>fact Chinese?
>>
>>Again, I don't raise these points as fatal objections. On the contrary,
>>I genuinely believe that these points can enhance the prospects of your
>>project, as they call attention to the role of culture in our
>>interactions with communications technologies.
>>
>>Hope they are of some interest. In the meantime, best wishes, peace, and
>>I look forward to hearing from you as time and circumstance permit.
>>
>>
>>Charles Ess
>>Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies
>>Drury University
>>900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230
>>Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435
>>Home page: http://www.drury.edu/Departments/phil-relg/ess.html
>>Co-chair, CATaC 2002: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/
>>"...to be non-violent, we must not wish for anything on this earth which
>>the meanest and lowest of human beings cannot have." -- Gandhi
>>_________________________________________________________________________
>Francis Heylighen <fheyligh@vub.ac.be> -- Center "Leo Apostel"
>Free University of Brussels, Krijgskundestr. 33, 1160 Brussels, Belgium
>tel +32-2-6442677; fax +32-2-6440744; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
Community email addresses:
Post message: unrev-II@onelist.com
Subscribe: unrev-II-subscribe@onelist.com
Unsubscribe: unrev-II-unsubscribe@onelist.com
List owner: unrev-II-owner@onelist.com
Shortcut URL to this page:
http://www.onelist.com/community/unrev-II
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 22 2001 - 07:57:07 PDT