oh my god it was only a matter of time before my big final year 400 level ‘hardest class you’ll ever take in undergrad’ seminar class would creep into a blog post. my class: ‘medium theory and the political economy of globalization’. my prof: the self-described ‘innisian slash marxist’ professor edward comor. the gist: we have lost our ability as a society to look forward. we have became spatially-biased. (among other things, but this was my biggest take)
this, in response to martin’s indirect jab at america’s failure to participate in climating changing initiatives by calling for a global conscience:
The Americans are acutely aware of how much their global image has been damaged by their misadventure in Iraq and other unilateral foreign policy decisions, including Kyoto. They are currently spending millions of dollars on a massive public relations campaign to, among other things, convince people around the world that they do indeed have a global conscience.
wait wait wait wait wait. rather than actually ACT in a way that would improve their global image, the yanks have decided to just hire a more expensive marketing team? this is what happens when your society becames spatially-biased, you lose the ability to think outside of your own constraints. the us is so confident that what they are doing is ‘just’, so arrogant of their superiority (or so poorly informed), that they don’t even consider they might be wrong. “wait a minute bruce, why do you think there is a growing anti-american sentiment spreading throughout the world?” “must just be our ‘image’ joe.” “oh, its just a pr problem then, that department should take care of the problem.” recycling can be seen in the same light. lets make our consumption a little more efficient by reusing some of these materials, but lets not actually curb our consumption, which is the real danger to our environment. the economy couldn’t handle that kind of change. we’re trapped.
but i am psyched about how canada’s allegiance to america could be a major issue in the coming election. harper is obviously the american lackey, and we would be helping out in iraq if he had his way*, but if the liberals push the ’standing up for canada card’** and win, what will that mean for canadian-american relations?
The American’s rebuff of Martin’s comments on Wednesday indicates Washington has no intention of spending the next six weeks playing the role of Paul Martin’s punching bag. It was a signal that there will be consequences if the Liberals want to play politics with Canada-U.S. relations.
*thankfully our beautiful system means that even if by some stroke of flying pigs harper wins, the majority will still deny military involvement… wait where does duceppe stand? i checked his website but its all french so i cant find out information about my one of my country’s prime minister hopefuls… funny that…)
** the polite way of saying ‘anti-american’… although i guess you dont have to be anti-american to want a fair deal on soft lumber…
what if canada starts to realize our own lack of forward thinking? we’re gonna run out of oil within our lifetime, there’s gonna be chaos in the us the closer we get to that fateful day. chaos here too, but more so in the states. more people, and more dependent on the black nectar. and more war like. not like they need an excuse to wage it anymore. terrorists everywhere doncha’ know. what if canada one day is like, ummm lets prepare for this little ‘eventuality’. right now, america is our most important trade partner, we’d be foolish to severe that bond. but america is obviously not a very healthy investment. perhaps one day we will have to slowly cut the ties… and perhaps we should look into doing that sooner rather than later…
but to get back to what i learned this semester… medium theory concentrates primarily on specific media and how they facilitate certain biases within society. an interesting example happened the other day in sydney, at cronulla beach, where i spent many a day last winter making the most of my australian experience by attempting to surf. one day we even saw a minor version* of the kind of racially-motivated violence that has erupted into a riot the past few days. the odd part:
Mobile phone text messages began circulating after the beatings, encouraging people to retaliate on Sunday and employing racial slurs.
* we even saw a guy brandishing a cricket bat! i thought that only happen in the world of the brothers coen.
it might not have been the case at all, but there’s a chance that this instant assembly of a riot might not have happened if text messaging wasn’t as popular as it is (if you think its popular in canada, you have no idea the extent to how popular text messaging can be, its replaced footie as the australian national sport down there). this isnt to say that cell phones caused the riot (that would be media-determinist, hey i did learn something!), but rather that cell phones facilitated the hatred to spread faster and more efficiently. it wouldnt be too hard to imagine the event unfolding as such: a fight breaks out over racial tensions, a bunch of guys all text their friends ‘hey come check this out, theres a bruhahaha down at the beach’. your typical aussie blokes comes on down, most of them im sure don’t want to see anything seriously violent breakout, just a scrap. but some of them are drinking. and more people message. and more people drink. and more people message.
riot.
all because of a spectacle, facilitated by the dangerous mix of two mediums: instant messaging and alcohol. look at this picture, not only do you two beer bottles in the crowd, but you see guys just trying to get a good look at the show.
look at the excited look on their face! and the main guy has a fuckin beer bottle in his hand, ready to inflict some serious damage on ‘one of dem coloured fellows’.
the ultimate example of a medium facilitating a powerful bias is the nation. the power of the nation:
16th century - 2 million deaths because of war
17th century - 6 million
18th century - 6 million
19th century - 20 million
20th century - 120 million
yes, the global population has risen considerably, but so has our desire to kill? so much for enlightenment. a vast percentage of these deaths are fought in wars between ‘nations’, what Benedict Anderson calls ‘imagined communities’. a lot is done in the name of this imagined community. in ours (where we use phrases like ‘our country’ to refer to a geographically arbitrary chunk of land, populated by people i’ll never met but feel connected to), we are sold coffee on the idea of canada, and we feel an elitist pride in being superior to another imagined community to the south. then again, it was the nation and one particular nation’s ability to produce a lot of war machinery that led the defeat of fascist germany. either way, the nation is powerful, maybe too powerful for this world. it might not be too much of an exaggeration to call this kind of thinking our major foe in the world today:
ive been up for 25 hours now… cause i was writing a paper on spike lee… who made a movie called ‘the 25th hour’… starring philip seymour hoffman… who was in ‘almost famous’ with billy crudup… who was in ’sleepers’ with- you guessed it!
ps thanks to my roomie for ‘punking’ my blog and keeping the content flowing… at least a bit… thanks for the ‘uber intelligent’ compliment, but im just faking
