“I” needs “we” to truly be “I”

I am a big fan of Michael Wesch, he brings clarity, and a welcome reasoned perspective to his work. In his recent presentation, (watch below), he talks about the quest for the authentic self, a journey that preoccupies and has preoccupied, all of us in an atomised modern society. This is not such as a recent phenomenon as some would like to think, what has changed are the  communication tools that are in our personal and collective hands, that makes it possible to accelerate that quest.

Soshana Zuboff in her seminal book the Support Economy, described a world in which modern industrial society atomises us, and the toxic tail-end of consumerism strips us of what makes us humans. She writes

Today’s individuals have a hard time believing in the corporate institutions of managerial capitalism, even the best among them. As end consumers and as employees, they find it increasingly difficult to trust that their interests are being served. The evidence suggests that not only are the new individuals forced to absorb the consequences of corporate indifference, they are ready to blaze new trails. As their needs go unheeded, they are pioneering wholly new kinds of consumption experiences, hoping to find what they after. The industrial economy is no longer adequate to their demands. The service economy cannot fulfill their needs…but this depressing scenario harbours an electrifying possibility: Everything about the new individuals that is ignored today is waiting to become the focus of a new “support economy”.

This is a visionary statement, when we witness that today, that is exactly what we are building. I see a pattern, in the fundamental need for humans to reconnect with what makes them human, the use of technologies of cooperation, (a term introduced by Howard Rheingold) and also the requirement that we are all recognised as individuals in a group.

In referencing the American idol phenomenon (SMLXL white paper) Wesch quotes Henry Candy, from 1926.

What we are encountering is a panicky, an almost hysterical. Attempt to escape from the deadly anonymity of modern life… and the prime cause is not vanity… but the craving of people who feel their personality sinking lower and lower in the the whirl of indistinguishable atoms to be lost in a mass civilisation.

We seek intimacy, we need to create meaning to make sense of our lives, and we do that through storytelling (something that is not the only right of movie studios). Some describe the crisis of the early 21st Century as a crisis of meaning.

In Consilience. The unity of knowledge by E.O. Wilson, he refers to Michel Foucault, whom he describes as the great interpreter of political power in the history of ideas. Wilson quotes George Scialabba’s interpretation of Foucault, “Foucault was grappling with the deepest, most intractable dilemma of modern identity… For those who believe that neither God nor natural law nor transcendent reason exists, and who recognise the varied and subtle ways in which material interest – power – has corrupted, even constituted, every previous morality, how is one to live, to what values can one hold fast?”

In this quest to connect, we upload 20 hours of video per minute on youtube. Wesch says that’s 1,000,000 videos per day. This is folk culture for the 21st Century, albeit on Steroids. Zuboff explains that as the crisis of meaning and identity reaches a point that becomes critical, we turn our backs on the mass consumer, mass media, industrial ideology, to one which brings greater and meaning and context to our lives. And we are using communication technologies to achieve this. An idea I presented at Reboot Britain. (more reading)

Zuboff says that we are are seeking new consumption choices that can redefine commerce. And we want to make a difference, we want to be heard, and, each of us wants to matter. Our new political choices begin with an apparent dilemma for leaders, she says because, we are educated (and increasingly more so) opinionated, rights claiming and keen to act. We possess concepts, ideals, and information.

The values surveys of Ronald Inglehart indicate that we demand true voice. This is, Zuboff argues in her book, a psychological reformation that suggests some interesting parallels to the religious reformation of the sixteenth century. Today’s individual rejects organisational mediation seeking instead to have a direct impact upon matters that touch his or her life. We shun traditional organisations in favour of unmediated relationship to the things we care about. Thus we demand a high quality of direct participation and influence. And we have the skills to lead, confer and discuss, and, we are not content to be good foot soldiers.

Zuboff goes onto explain that, young adults place a premium on the efficacy of small groups of people working together to effect change in tangible ways. And they show strong preference for leadership ‘that emphasizes the collective participation of many individuals over the strong leadership of the few.’

This rejection of mediated influence also helps explain the growing interest in the concept of ‘direct democracy’ as a natural evolution of representative democracy. Hence we seek true voice; direct participation, unmediated influence and identity based community because we are comfortable using own own experience as a basis for making judgments. What Henry Jenkins describes as a participatory culture.

We are in a process of renegotiating the power relationships between individuals, communities, organisations and governance. In my forthcoming book, No Straight Lines, the Log line is that, we as a species are on a quest to rediscover our role in society. Because as individuals that are part of, and belong to a bigger whole, we wonder; why? Or in other words…

I+WE = WHY?

This premises the politics of authenticity, that Wesch describes. The tension is inherent in…

Cultural inversion
Expressions:                      values:
Individualism                    community
Independence                    relationships
Commercialisation           authenticity

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Posted in: Culture, Engagement Civil Society, Ethics, Generation C, Government & Politics, Identity, Media, Networks, Participation, Society, Trends, Web/Tech

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