A few weeks ago I met with a friend who’s a big time trekkie. Uniforms, conferences, secret hand shakes, the whole nine yards. We were talking about a Facebook post he wrote about Miguel Alcubierre, who, for the non-trekkies in the audience, is the scientist behind the concept of Warp Drive referenced in Star Trek. Alcubierre is actually a cool cat who frequently debates warp technology (theory) on Twitter with his followers.
Over a beer, and then another, the conversation quickly moved to other technologies that were considered science fiction on TV and are now a part of everyday life. Like, the Star Trek replicator and 3D printers. Ok, give it a few more years. Or touch screens (again in Star Trek), and face scanning technology (Minority Report). As the beers kept coming the conversation kept flowing the conversation got more serious.
Trekkies love to talk about how Star Trek not only predicted technology but politics too. Star Trek was known to be forward thinking in its handling of race issues, for example. My slightly inebriated friend was now up on his soap box claiming that technology is the catalyst for political discourse more than political discourse or social events help develop new technologies. For me, a former student of anthropology, social processes have always been at the core of new technological developments.
Back home, at the end of the night, our conversation was gnawing at the back of my mind and reactivating my dormant academic curiosity, since becoming a working joe. So, I decided to dust off the old notebooks, look through the old books, and see if I could find something to help me out. As I rummaged through 9 years of academic materials I ran across a book called “The Rise of Network Society” written by Manuel Castells in 1996.
Reading through a bit of the intro it call came rushing back to me. I remembered that our besotted conversation, from a couple of hours before, was actually a repeat broadcast of similar conversations had by much greater minds than our own, specifically Manuel Castells. Who was right and who was wrong - me or my trekkie friend? You decide - or better yet, read the below and start the discussion in the comments section.
Manuel Castells is a Spanish sociologist who enjoys studying and writing about social media, communications, and globalization (I wonder what he would have to say about Steem). But he’s no bookworm. Castells was an active protestor and member of the Franco counter-movement in Spain, which, eventually, got him fired from Paris University. Not your average college professor...
Being a member of a social revolutionary movement, Castells quickly came to realize that you CAN change things through protest BUT only if your protest symbolizes and incorporates the interests and values of the social majority.
Castells was first to understand that the bureaucracy of the industrial age was irrelevant and antiquated for the early years of the information age. He didn’t fall into the trap of dividing the world into socialists vs capitalists, which so many did back in the 60s. Castells was revolutionary in considering people, everywhere, as individuals, organized in a grass roots type of way and fighting their way through the bureaucratic jungle regardless if it’s capitalism or socialism.
It’s not about capitalism vs socialism / communism. It’s the bureaucracy, stupid. It’s about the little guy and his uphill battle against the wheels of bureaucracy. It’s about the iconic battle of the revolutionary 60s that was happening all over the world at, pretty much, the same time. And, it is from this battle that the “Third Revolution” has risen.
The Third Revolution is the information revolution, which pretty much introduced the technological landscape we now live in. For example, in late 60s Soviet Russia, the idea of the personal computer was subversive in its own right! Printers were illegal.
Back at the capitalist side of the pendulum, none of the CEOs of the large tech companies of the 1970s had even thought about introducing PCs to every household. At IBM, they were still talking about how “by the year 2,000 there will be 5-10 computers worldwide”. The CEO of IBM even publicly asked: “Why would someone want a personal computer in their home?”.
This was a different time, and using technology to represent and advance the social values of individuals, groups or entire communities with a subversive act no one had given much thought to.
Technological change did not, at least in those times, come from the tech companies themselves: the manufacturers or developers of new technology. So where did it come from then?
Things have changed a bit since the Swinging Sixties but some remained the same. For Castells, modern society is designed by the interaction between techno-economic changes and what people choose to do with them. So, following that logic, it’s not Facebook that made us become more social, communicative, or technological. All Facebook did was provide us with a platform where we can be free to express ourselves, and in that lies its secret to success. In other words, it’s not about Facebook being a force of good or evil because Facebook is not a force at all. It’s about the people who use it. Could the same be said for Steem?!
But, like most academics, Castells isn’t as decisive as I made him seem. He still considers that technology can be a driving force behind change on a local or global scale, and as long as technology continues to advance we won’t be able to stop social developments that are dependant on that technology. Does that mean we should expect more social media led revolutions? And, are they, in fact, inevitable?
When it comes to the transfer of information and knowledge, the internationality and decentralization of social media is what has made it the most important political battleground. Without a strong guiding hand of established political institutes the political discourse on social media can run free or wild, depends on your perspective. This provides whoever does control social media with a great deal of power by taking it away from the traditional political powers like governments, the wealthy, and other government institutions.
Back in 2,000, way before Facebook, Castells was already predicting that global technologically driven social processes were threatening to turn communities, institutions, and entire countries irrelevant. 10 years later, in 2010, the Arab spring broke out, fueled by social media and proved him a prophet.
The modern worker in general, and those that work in the tech industry in particular, are, for Castells, programmed yet highly individualized. The modern worker is quick to succumb to temptation, and he and she are bombarded with it constantly. Temptation is then used as an effective tool to polarize workers, divide them, and prevent organized labor. By whom, is it government? Is it employers? Is it both? You tell me.
It’s pretty clear that Castells is very influenced by Karl Marx but unlike Marx’s factory laborer, Castells’ techy is not a revolutionary and is not eager to be a catalyst for change. However, like Marx, Castells is a revolutionary but he feels two things must happen for the revolution to take place.
There needs to be a strong uniting pain that affects a large portion of the population. For example, government bureaucracy that causes poverty - widespread poverty.
There also needs to be a way for people to understand that what they’re experiencing is a shared experience by many. This is where technology comes in to spread the message and then also spread the revolution.
Which one of the two needs to come first? Dunno.
