I was watching the news a few days ago, they where talking about all this egypt stuff and this google executive who had been held by the egyptian government and just that day released. In a short blurb he was quoted as saying "this is revolution 2.0". I absolutely lost my shit and started laughing uproariously. I just kept thinking to myself "this is what google executives actually believe!". Now, im not poking any fun, I completely agree with them (sort of, lets not reduce this into absurdity though, ok?), but its just so funny hearing someone lay it out so flat. Just drop knowledge on people like that. Its heartwarming, really it is, to see McLuhans "the medium is the message" come so far. Not only that, this philosophy was being reiterated over a truly global medium, part and parcel of our global village.
The idea that the revolution in egypt was "revolution 2.0" is very specifically correct. Web 2.0 is user generated content, there is no "provider". Moreover it is a dissemination of media both through and to all members of the society. Similarly, the revolutions sweeping the middle east have no leader, they are if you will, user generated content. Vast accumulations of more or less formless, nonspecific, social contact. The contact is nonspecific just as the demands of the protests are nonspecific. It is more or less through the weight of numbers alone that they have overwhelmed their parent governments. It is specifically through this directionless, formless, revolution that they have succeeded. It is like sun ztu said "attack where there is no defense". By not elucidating a long list of specific demands with a specific figurehead of leadership, which would of been, if you will, web 1.0 content, they have debased the counter revolutionary force of subverting the revolutionary leaders and co-oping their message and demands. Somehow in having no specific demands with no specific leader they seem to demand only what is self evident.
Once again, technology is the solvent of culture. The universal solvent, like water, life giving, we are in fact 83% technology (what?). Its been strange watching all this revolutionary fervor over the past month or so. Just today there where huge riots in Iran again, maybe they will get somewhere this time.
It is quite fortuitous then that I have just got done reading Bruce Bawers "While europe slept". It is, if you are not familiar, a scathing condemnation of european social and cultural attitudes, particularly the european intellectual and political elite, and as well, an impassioned critique of fundamentalist islam, and the lax attitude many muslims seem to have towards it. Its not really necessary to review the book here, you can find reviews on amazon. I would like however to address bawers points in light of recent events.
The primary worry bawers seems to have, that europe, americas "natural ally" in the world (I would contest this point), is rapidly being populated with radical islamic immigrants who refuse to acclimate or assimilate to european society and values. That europeans moreover, in a strange breed of subtle racism would rather not have these new immigrants assimilate. And that as a result of these attitudes we will see a balkanization of europe in the future, with european politics being dominated with right wing "neo fascists" and fundamentalist islamic immigrant enclaves. The two sides of course eventually going to war with one another or some such. As a result of all this americas position in the world is weakened and europe is a base for further terrorist activity. All of this is very well and good as far as prognostication goes but bawers is so obviously butthurt over islams attitudes towards homosexuals that it taints his writing and thinking with an air of petty name calling that does him no service. He also completely fails to mention china, at all, like, I dont even think the word "china" is used in the book. How he gets off trying to predict european political events 10-20 years into the future and not mention china and its potential influence even once is beyond me but to be fair, thats a whole other book!
All throughout this story I kept kind of snickering at both parties. Europeans having their magical little culturally homogeneous fantasy lands of fjords and milk maidens ruined by these ugly minarets or whatever. And then on the flip side, all these middle eastern immigrants having their magical little culturally homogeneous fantasy lands of oasiss and and hijab wearing goat maidens or whatever ruined by all these fags smoking weed and holding hands or whatever. The joke of course is that technology and scientific understanding is destabilizing both of these "realities" catastrophically (well, and the economies, lets be fair). Technology dissolving perceived cultural "realities". Rendering centuries of mythology and narrative obsolete. Excuse me for being unabashedly fukuyamian but it seems obvious to me that this flight into cultural xenophobia from the islamic world is just like europes flight into cultural xenophobia a hundred years or so ago. They are different in all the same ways and in that they are a like. Baudrillards "desert of the real" just as relevant as ever. (Ill never quit quoting baudrillard! You cant stop me!). In a strange way all throughout the book it felt to me that what bawer was really reporting on was not actually a culture clash between europe and islam but between twenty first century technologically induced social realities and the irrelevant narratives these various cultures turn to in an attempt to address these realities.
Both also, not coincidentally are "opposed" to americanization, an insidious thing no one can tame or hold back no matter who they kill or how. They, eruope and islam, have of course missed the mark. American culture has largely invented itself out of nothing on accident. Its not really even america they are trying to stand up against anyway, its progress! So quick to shoot the messenger! Valiantly they try to limit the extent of their own cultures and endlessly they fail. Everywhere a strange kind of privatized deterrence that is cloyingly "american" even to me. We gate our suburbs, they gate their racial and cultural identities. (Im watching riots in bahrain on aljazeera english right now. Welcome to the hyperreal!) Endlessly european and islamic cultural "reality" dissolves all around them. Culture is a process, not an object. There is no object of culture, no reality, no objective truth, no fact, no falsity, it is a mirror into a mirror, surface into surface into surface. There was a computer from IBM playing Jeopardy tonight. Air force pilots out in the mojave desert pilot predator drones thousands of miles away and make air strikes in pakistan. We arnt even at war in pakistan. 90% of the corn in america is genetically modified. Does anyone seriously think EU bureaucracy or imam fatwas are going to stop any of this? Talk about putting a finger in the dike. We dont even have to fight radical islam, they are teaching themselves electrical engineering building I.E.D.s out of cellphones. They network 24/7 at internet cafes. Dig this; Osama Bin Laden, leader of a radical religious movement threatening to send europe back into the 7th century propagates his messages of god fearing islamic revolution by posting videos on the internet! A vain attempt, like marxist ends by capitalist means. Or jeffersonian ends by hamiltonian means. Yet again, the medium is the message. The war on terrorism, the slow food movement, television censorship, all these are last gasps of irrelevant narratives. We dont need to fight or convert these people, just give them iphones and a toyota prius and send them to american apparel, poof! Revolution 2.0! Mission accomplished, hearts and minds won, end of history.
Both also, not coincidentally are "opposed" to americanization, an insidious thing no one can tame or hold back no matter who they kill or how. They, eruope and islam, have of course missed the mark. American culture has largely invented itself out of nothing on accident. Its not really even america they are trying to stand up against anyway, its progress! So quick to shoot the messenger! Valiantly they try to limit the extent of their own cultures and endlessly they fail. Everywhere a strange kind of privatized deterrence that is cloyingly "american" even to me. We gate our suburbs, they gate their racial and cultural identities. (Im watching riots in bahrain on aljazeera english right now. Welcome to the hyperreal!) Endlessly european and islamic cultural "reality" dissolves all around them. Culture is a process, not an object. There is no object of culture, no reality, no objective truth, no fact, no falsity, it is a mirror into a mirror, surface into surface into surface. There was a computer from IBM playing Jeopardy tonight. Air force pilots out in the mojave desert pilot predator drones thousands of miles away and make air strikes in pakistan. We arnt even at war in pakistan. 90% of the corn in america is genetically modified. Does anyone seriously think EU bureaucracy or imam fatwas are going to stop any of this? Talk about putting a finger in the dike. We dont even have to fight radical islam, they are teaching themselves electrical engineering building I.E.D.s out of cellphones. They network 24/7 at internet cafes. Dig this; Osama Bin Laden, leader of a radical religious movement threatening to send europe back into the 7th century propagates his messages of god fearing islamic revolution by posting videos on the internet! A vain attempt, like marxist ends by capitalist means. Or jeffersonian ends by hamiltonian means. Yet again, the medium is the message. The war on terrorism, the slow food movement, television censorship, all these are last gasps of irrelevant narratives. We dont need to fight or convert these people, just give them iphones and a toyota prius and send them to american apparel, poof! Revolution 2.0! Mission accomplished, hearts and minds won, end of history.
