Technologies of Sin & Salvatation:
Capital & Technologies of Meaning in the Age of the Perpetual Innovation Economy
SUMMARY
But
so long as the market retains its transcendent status
in liberal political theory, the telos of a more just
and equitable social order will remain virtual, and
the experience of a universal subjectivity will remain
the sole province of those who can afford it.
GRANT KESTER, LEARNING FROM AESTHETICS
AS
A BOY, I saw my father delight in
uncovering corruption for The Iowa City Press Citizen. He taught me to love both the act of writing and to
stand amidst the stink and roar of the presses as
they transformed words to Truths. My mother was a
speech pathologist who often took me her clinic to
'talk' with disabled children learning to use alternative
speech technologies. The memory of one boy with severe
muscular dystrophy struggling to communicate with
his language board, spelling out what was within him
one word at a time, still fills me with a sense of
humility and awe.
Years
later at college, I had my first glimpse of another
definition of what it is to be human. In those children
of extraordinary wealth, it seemed capital had realized
its ideal. Those young men and women had been defined
by all that they might have and be, rather than delimited
by what they were never to have or attain. To my eyes,
they lived untouched by any awareness of an inaccessible
object. Their privileged circumstances had afforded
them that precious 'universal subjectivity.' They
were beautiful, whole and strong. And I yearned to
live in such a state of grace. Only much later in
life would I begin to understand the economics of
that earthly grace.
So what do these
experiences have to do with one another? They're all
about the technologies of value and meaning that define
our humanity and our world. They're about capital,
communications and human experience — the subjects
of this book. It's as inconceivable to imagine humankind
without its linguistic technologies — our words
and symbols — as it is to imagine a future without
our capital technologies — our money, our global
digital marketplace. And these technologies continue
to morph and evolve at breakneck speeds. Where are
they taking us?
Today, mind-boggling
effort and expense are being directed at the redesign
of human environments to make use of advances in information
and communication technologies. On what bases are
we to establish design principles for these new fields
of human action? In this book, I argue that the question
is more complex than is often assumed, and that a
fundamentally new way of conceiving human social organization
is required - one that recognizes the central role
of affective, embodied experience in human cognition
and culture. Evidence from a range of disciplines
is presented which suggests the need for a method
of researching and designing these technologies which
extends from material considerations, through issues
of rational cognition, and which incorporates as well
the social and biological dynamics of human affect
in our understanding, design and assessment of these
technologies of value and meaning. Through a process
of visual and linguistic metaphor analysis, the approach
I suggest seeks to understand "eco-cognitive
technologies," how they operate, and provide
a structure of principles upon which to judge their
value and effectiveness in improving both our lives
and our relationship with our environment. Because
of the complexity of issues involved, I use a transdisciplinary
approach which involves political-economic analyses;
historical and contemporary Eastern and Western theories
of knowledge and meaning; biological and environmental
sciences; artificial intelligence and computer science;
and contemporary psychology and cognitive science.
What
you see here is a draft manuscript, which is posted
to invite comments about and suggestions
for this work in progress. I
hope you'll contact me with your thoughts.
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