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Re: [microsound] confusion






On 7/12/06, Jason Hollis <contact@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"and to the person who thinks myspace is a free market-driven meritocracy: you're kidding, right?"

Um, no.
You're both massively oversimplifying what I said and missing the point
completely.



That seems a bit contradictory to me. If you're "massively
oversimplifying," then you're not exactly "missing the point completely."
An oversimplification suggests that a point has been gotten to some degree,
if not entirely or close to mostly.



I refer to the concept commonly referred to as the 'marketplace of ideas',
wherein what can be described as market forces act on all abstractions.



Except for the abstractions inherent in this definition presumably. This
sounds like market-driven reductionism. What exactly is a "marketplace of
ideas?" Ideas are not selected like fruit preferences. The validity,
soundness, and persuasiveness of concepts are driven by analysis, not market
exchange-value, at least outside the Bush-world of slavish,
commerce-centered life.

Aaaw, did I push your Bush-button? Mine's been pretty itchy lately too, but please, try to retain some kind of objectivity.
Just because the Shrubenfuhrer and his ilk like to use that phrase occasionally doesn't change the fact that a free market analogy fits over the memetic mechanisms in this context just as easily as, say, a biological/evolutionary analogy analogy would.


In either case, I would expect to simply be able to toss the analogy out in such presumably intelligent company without having to explain every little detail for fear of being labeled a reductionist. Fill in your own blanks, lazybones.



And what exactly is meant by "market forces act on
all abstractions"? Market forces--production, consumption, and
exchange--operate on everything concrete. The only way that market forces
act on ideas is in the way the media and public discourse refuse to allow or
give credence to any questioning of their assumptions as to how economic
life should operate. And that's certainly nothing to praise.

More of the same. See above.


_______MySpace itself has meritocratic tendencies insomuch as users choose what
they like and massively cross link it, share with friends, etc,____________ so the
cream
can rise-



Sounds very much like you're pushing forward the idea of a market-driven
meritocracy after all--no missing the point or oversimplification here.
You're saying it straight up. The cream here is not the natural selection
of a disinterested market but the publicity surrounding chance-driven
encounters misread as "merit" rather than an operative form of capital
process (communal publicity) grooving well with the instrumental motives of
the website and its operators/inventors. you have to have a critical
superego to see it though. You can't be a market-driven ideologue or else
you end up permanently mistaking the effect for its cause and vice versa.


If none of this is gelling for you, nothing more I say will help and I
suggest you read up on the subject.


That's a convenient way to slip out of backing up your assertion that your
discussant is both missing the point entirely and oversimplifying the point
all at the same time. What else should we ignorant masses be reading up on
apart from the Microsound list and of course the call to 'read up.'


--
"If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television program and visit the
same resort places, if the typist is as attractively made up as the daughter
of her employer, if the Negro owns a Cadillac, if they all read the same
newspaper, then this assimilation indicates not the disappearance of
classes, but the extent to which the needs and satisfactions that serve the
preservation of the Establishment are shared by the underlying
population....The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they
find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen
equipment."--Herbert Marcuse



I expected SO much better from you, clever as you usually come across on the list.


Allow me to paraphrase your reply:

"OMG everyone!
Look at the straw man!
Baaaad strawman!
Dont look over here at the fact that I have yet to refute a single point!"

Now who's rubbing conceptual shoulders with the neocons?
=/

I have inserted underscores at the point in my own statement above that should serve to clarify my position for the convenience of anyone that cares about what I actually said and meant. If you can find glaring inaccuracies in that, well, I welcome the education.

Or is it simply that you reject the entire idea of.. what?
Meritocratic systems?
Free markets?
The notion of Memes themselves?

If this nitpicking thread MUST continue, at least tell us what exactly is it that you have taken such offense to?

~ !J!
http://www.endif.org
http://www.crunchpod.com
http://www.thirdwavecollective.com





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