• Placebo effect of our "postmodern" political process

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"close the door button" <+-+> "the fake participation"
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<quote start>

It is a well-known fact that the "Close the door" button in most
elevators is a totally disfunctional placebo, which is placed there
just to give the individuals the impression that they are somehow
participating, contributing to the speed of the elevator journey -
when we push this button, the door closes in exactly the same time as
when we just pressed the floor button without "speeding up" the
process by pressing also the "Close the door" button. This extreme and
clear case of fake participation is an appropriate metaphor of the
participation of individuals in our "postmodern" political
process. And this is occasionalism at its purest: according to
Malebranche, we are all the time pressing such buttons, and it is
God's incessant activity that coordinates between them and the event
that follows (the door closing), while we think the event results from
our pushing the button...

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  | For that reason, it is crucial to maintain open the radical      |
  | ambiguity of how cyberspace will affect our lives: this does not |
  | depend on technology as such but on the mode of its social       |
  | inscription .                                                    |
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<quote end> (1)

This is probably the most important issue in new participation models
developing through the network of networks - the Internet. Those
electronic networks for collaboration are the new field of perception.
They suplement the constitution of our identities, and are
interwoven into our power relationships, by being increasigly at the
heart of our lifes

To understand how does it affects us, the crucial question to pose is
one of participation in organizational processes through new practices
that the Internet, this new realm of perception, brings about. Power
that one holds is never strictly individual (not even when one
occupies the strong position of political authority), thus the key to
understanding is through power relationships of and within organizations,
and networks: 

  - what constitutes such power;

  - how it gets created by individuals, within organizations, networks
    and society at large;

  - what are the features of power and forms that it takes ("power to"
    as ability to do, to achieve something; and "power over" - as the
    domination over others); 

  - how is power nurtured and distributed: both in theory and in practice. 

Today, because of the rise of the Internet, answers to those questions
might be quite different then 15-20 years ago. Unless we recognize
those changes, we won't be able to distinguish weather we are truly
participating or merely justifying someone else's acts - acts of those
"real" participants are usualy justified by mass of "fake"
participants.

Another key feature to understand is the ideology. Unless dealt with,
the ideology will conceal the power relations and our task of
recognizing the type of participation (fake, real, limited, extent of
limitations) becomes impossible. For that reason, we should never
regard our positions as ideologically neutral, nor - in the context of
discussion - accept the popular postmodern solution that divergence
doesn't matter because, in the absence of 'reality', all
interpretations can co-exist(2).

In short: we can find out which position is closest to the truth, and
which ones can not coexist.

Distinguishing the types of participation is the core task of
our framework. 

Issues like power and ideology can not be avoided.

Unless we want to end up adding more layers in already
sophisticated web of deception that we are all caught in.

toni


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(1) Slavoj Zizek: "Inside the Matrix?" - International Symposium at the
Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe In cooperation with EIKK and
Bluebox e.V. - October 28, 1999

(2) See Slavoj Zizek's essay 'The Spectre of Ideology',
"Mapping Ideology", Verso 1994 - pages 16-17

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