We Are All Cyborgs Now

"In this new regime, a train station (like an airport, a café, or a park) is no longer a communal space but a place of social collection: people come together but do not speak to each other. Each is tethered to a mobile device and to the people and places to which that device serves as a portal. I grew up in Brooklyn..."

Wait a minute.

Steve Rogers, did you write my digital media textbook? O_o

The above photo is a still of the Captain America deleted scenes from The Avengers (2012). Just a kid from 1920s Brooklyn, Steve has been transported into a future where nobody really talks to anybody. Everyone is plugged into a device of some sort designed to take them out of their immediate surroundings. From left to right we have an MP3 player, an eReader, and two smartphones. Steve Rogers, the man out of time, is the only one actually on the train.

Earlier in the clip, when Steve is walking through New York, a cellphone street vendor barks out "Buy some time! Buy some time!"



Is that what we're all doing now? Trying to "make more time by multitasking, our twenty-first-century alchemy" at the expense of living in the moment? I know of one person in particular that is notorious for this type of behavior. I'll have her over at my house, and she will interact with her cellphone every five seconds while we're eating. Trying to have a conversation with her feels like I'm intruding upon the world she really wants to be in. Even my best friend is slipping into this habit now that she has a smartphone. I have to cover up the screen to get her to answer a simple yes or no question. My dog even feels the immediate social disconnect caused by technology; just while I was writing this, he pawed at my leg until I picked him up so he could sit in my lap while I type.

With the immediacy of all of our technology, we are not "existing in the moment" as my yoga teacher likes to say. Recently, however, I've made a concerted effort to stop this, to become a better cyborg by knowing when to turn off the display flickering at the edge of my vision so I can fully experience one event. After all, is all of this connectivity really enhancing our lives when we're sort of--but not really--paying attention to five different things? Well, yes and no. Sometimes, like in class, I use technology to look up supplemental information. That's the beautiful side of technology when online you and real life you is working together towards the same goal. Most times, however...

We're doing five disparate things that detract from each other. I'm not saying this is always a bad thing. Entertainment in itself is not an unworthy pursuit. However, this type of technology is not so shiny new anymore, and we need to learn how to put it down in the right situations. After all, that smartphone is not literally sewn to your hand. Part of the obligation of being a consumer is knowing when to cut yourself off so it does not become an addiction. So, just like the liquor ads always tell you, please

Chapter 1 & 2

So, today's blog is prompted by chapters 1 and 2 from the textbook An Introduction to New Media and Cybercultures from my Capstone class in Communication. A major theme of both chapters focuses around discovering how much of ourselves we take into the cyber world with us.

Earlier theories presented in chapter 1 "such as that by Howard Rheingold (1994) celebrate virtual worlds for enabling the user to transcend geography and the body." However, chapter 2 develops a very different stance based upon more recent--and perhaps more realistic and less ideological--theories:

The artifact is the environment through which the audience moves, and the artifact-environment is shaped by this movement of the audience. "Interactivity" is this mutual linkage: the rootedness of the artifact in the audience and the audience-experience being shaped by the artifact. Art forms that depend on cybercultures once again highlight the fact that cyberculture cannot be studied independently of the real and the material.

 Because the cyber world cannot be completely disconnected from our corporeal selves, then, there is a place to discuss the disparate experiences that different genders go through. The hybrid state between human and computer is known as a cyborg, a key staple in cyberpunk fiction. Ironically, though, in the early eras that claimed that virtual reality allowed one to escape the confines of the body, cyberpunk literature reflected the predominantly white male participants of the technological world through the "macho-cyborg" protagonists. Any transcendence for women and minorities, then, would have come from the fact that cyber culture "rarely identifies the 'console cowboy' as 'white male' because it is assumed that white male bodies are the norm." One of my favorite cyberpunk novels Ender's Game from this time in the late eighties to the early nineties even holds true with this assumption of the white male as the active agent in the cyber world.

From this was born a cyberpunk feminist response that: 

...demands a new genre that emphasizes women's experience of high tech. Feminist cyberpunk begins with the assumption that cyberpunk reinforces existing gender inequalities. The genre foregrounds technology in the material conditions of the real world, where control over technology is concentrated in male, capitalist hands and serves the purpose of racialized and gendered exploitation. The woman cyberpunk, when not a part of the underclass, becomes a code for the alien Other. 

However, it seems just as we move away from the assumption that the body can be transcended is actually when we begin to see this happening. The real world and the cyber world impact upon each other simultaneously in that the more women are introduced to cyber culture, the more the technology is opened up to them and the more they participate. For instance, in the early days of the computer even into the 2000's, computers and their career fields were associated predominantly with men. Now, though, my womanly self is tech savvier than 80% of the guys I know--which is saying something as I tend to hang out with some awesomely geeky individuals. Also, a majority of the individuals I tutor in Web Design are women, and I work with technologically empowered women such as the awesome Graphic Artist Elisabeth Shabi.

Furthermore, rather than the contrived cyberpunk feminist movement, female protagonists now appear naturally in cyberpunk literature such as my favorite recent cyberpunk series Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.

If you read the reviews, I haven't seen a person yet that even comments on how the protagonist is female. It's because it just doesn't matter. Women in technology spheres have become so commonplace that the event is just not remarkable--which is exactly as it should be. Rather than shouting out our special snowflakeness by setting up a separate genre for female cyberpunk, a more effective method is just running a silent invasion into the technology that had been dominated by males. Before long, we're there, and they don't know how long ago it was that they just accepted that fact. We didn't announce our plans to take over their cyber world; we just did it and didn't demand special recognition for it.

That's what the cyber culture I live in is about. Yeah, we are inextricably attached to our female bodies, but it's really quite incidental to our participation in cyber communities. It might even be a benefit in terms of hardware as guys burn their junk on the hot underside of laptops all the time...though I suppose boobs can occasionally get in the way of viewing the screen when you're laying down...

Aaaaaaaaand that's where I end this blog for today. Feel free to contemplate how your own bits influence your online life (answer: probably not much).

Purple Hair and More, Coming to a Classroom Near You!

Hello, people I've now known for three years! Assuming you've all picked up amnesia over the break--or that we might have people looking at this blog who don't know me--allow me to once more introduce myself. My name is Angela Harkins. I'm 22 and a senior at Reinhardt University. Next year, I hope to start working towards a Master's degree in Human-Computer interaction at Georgia Tech. Mostly, though, I'm known as the girl with the purple hair.

 This purple hair, to be exact.

In fact, that picture is one of me in Spain where I studied abroad over the summer. As a web designer, I was able to continue doing some work for Cherokee FOCUS, a non-profit located in Holly Springs, Georgia whose website I built and maintain. It is in this way, then, that cyber culture has quite an impact upon my life. Even though I was half a world away, I was able to participate in my workplace culture almost as if I were there in person. 

It's a little bizarre, when you think about it, to realize that cyber culture has developed over the past few decades to the point that I don't have to be physically near anyone in order to participate in a community. I go to work online, I pay my bills online, and I interact socially online. In fact, since most of my interactions occur on the web, most people's mental representation of me is my avatar rather than my actual face.

However, with this new field suddenly open to us, a lot of the major ethical questions of our day are being raised. I recently received an email about a lawsuit against facebook for using personal information of its users in their advertising. Is it okay for them to do this? After all, we did voluntarily give them the information.

What about the problems over at Instagram where they're selling pictures and user information?

Or, more broadly, should the internet come under the control of the United Nations, or are we doing okay on our own?

What about online piracy, the use of online information by police, and the existence of vigilante groups like Anonymous?

We're setting the example that all future generations will follow. In order to make sure we are laying a solid foundation of moral responsibility, we need to understand the cyber culture in which we are participating before making decisions about issues such as those listed above.

World Citizenship

In the video we watched in Intercultural Communication on Wednesday, November 16, 2011, I saw people being treated as if they were less valuable than a piece of paper. This is because they were refugees—“internationally displaced persons . . . victims or potential victims of persecution on the basis of their race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, gender, or political views”—who had fled their homelands out of fear (262). Thus, they did not have time to collect papers validating them as fellow humans worthy of equal treatment.

The people in the video were a part of transnational migration, a “movement in which a person regularly moves back and forth between two or more countries and forms a new cultural identity transcending a single geopolitical unit” (259). The reason for this is that they were regularly shunted from nation to nation because of their illegal status. Indeed, as illegals they were actually prevented from getting jobs and often deported.

Paradoxically, one gentleman that we saw actually attain a visa was then restricted from

leaving the country at all. The point is, then, that international laws restricting movement are highly illogical and ridiculously discriminatory. Indeed, Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” Barbara Miller refers to this as the “right of return” and explains that it was “elevated by the United Nations to an ‘inalienable right’ in 1974” (273).

However, international laws hardly allow for someone to fulfill their right to leave any country because they are then not allowed to reside anywhere else as full and equal citizens. The most common barrier is that applying for visas or green cards are extremely long, complicated, and discriminatory processes that do not lend themselves to helping foreign citizens that are in poor situations due to violence or a lack of opportunities in their home nations. For example, take a look at who may apply for visas in the United States. The list is limited to visitors, students, workers with a U.S. employer, and people with family already in the U.S. Indeed, the qualifications for a green card are the same—“green card through family . . . green card through a job”—though it does at least include “green card through Refugee or Asylee status.” However, whether or not people are really refugees is still determined by a person with a clipboard when they are “admitted to the United States.” Furthermore, the system is clearly classist. If a person is leaving his or her nation for the fact that there are no jobs and he or she has no money for school, how exactly is it that he or she should legally transition to an area with opportunities? I certainly have no answer for this question, and it seems none of the world’s nations do either.

Thus, in response to this inadequacy of laws was born the World Citizenship movement. It was created by Garry Davis, a former WWII bomber pilot, who stated that:

the essence of democracy is universal participatory decision-making, whereas the essence of national sovereignty, a hangover from the feudalism and the absolute sovereignty of kings, is exclusivity and the non-participation of citizens outside the national boundary. Citizens "belonged" to the nation only while all humans outside that nation were "foreigners," or worse, "aliens."

Indeed, the World Government of World Citizens issues the World Passport which “over 150 countries have visaed . . . on a case-by-case basis.” The passport is founded upon the tenants penned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and “therefore it is premised on the fundamental oneness or unity of the human community.”

What is needed now is a universal acceptance of our shared humanity. To do so, we must abandon our “lifeboat mentality, a view that seeks to limit enlarging a particular group because of perceived constraints on resources” (272). Indeed, one of the most common arguments I hear against Mexican immigration to the United States is that they are taking all of our jobs. However, that is utter crap. Often, illegal immigrants take jobs a citizen would not. Also, an illegal immigrant’s residency in the United States is no more of a threat to employment than the people already living here. Indeed, additional people create a rise in demand which, in turn, leads to a rise in supply and creates more jobs.

Thus, in summation, it does not hurt us, the unduly privileged, to ensure the rights and freedoms of our fellow humans. Indeed, it serves only as a reaffirmation of the shared humanity from which all of our natural and inalienable rights derive. It follows, then, that the only injurious action is to do nothing while the freedoms of our fellow humans are impinged upon, thus debasing the very foundation upon which our own rights and governments stand.

Chapters 3 and 8

Many people tend to drastically oversimplify past and present economic systems. Usually, people tend to think that their current economic system is far more advanced than their ancestors’ economies. However, past systems such as foraging were extremely complex. Also, what most do not realize is that foraging, horticulture, pastoralism, and agriculture are still alive today—even within our contemporary, industrialism/informatics society.

(Old and new economies, as seen through the eye of the modern man.)

For example, consider foraging, “a mode of livelihood based on resources that are available in

nature through gathering, fishing, hunting, or scavenging.” This seems like the mode of livelihood least likely to still exist in our society, right? Wrong. People hunt in the United States a great deal. My Dad, in fact, hunts deer. Thus, he supplements a modern industrialism/informatics system—“the mode of livelihood in which goods and services are produced through mass employment in business and commercial operations and through the creation, manipulation, management, and transfer of information via electronic media”—with foraging, “the oldest way of making a living.”

Indeed, my Dad and I also participate in horticulture, “a mode of livelihood based on cultivating domesticated plants in gardens with the use of hand tools.” We grow squash, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, and other plants. It is, in fact, extremely common in the North Georgia region, in which I live, for people to be both foragers and horticulturalists. These systems also provide for a mode of “personalized consumption” because it leads naturally to farmers’ markets where people buy produce directly from the producer. Miller even acknowledges the farmers’ market system in Cultural Anthropology in a Globalizing World.

In addition, being part of a foraging and horticulture microculture provides a “social safety

net” because of “leveling mechanisms” that are an unwritten part of the society. This leveling mechanism is a “norm . . . an accepted standard for how people should behave that is usually unwritten and learned unconsciously through socialization.” If one person or family has a surplus of a certain meat, fruit or vegetable, then that person is expected to give away the extra. Later, when the people in the sharing circle have a surplus, they will in turn give away what extra food they have. This is a system of “generalized recipricoty”—“a transaction that involves the least conscious interest in material gain or thought of what might be received in return and when the return might occur”—which is a form of “balanced exchange”—“a system of transfers in which the goal is either immediate or eventual balance in value.” For instance, my neighbor Charlotte made peach preserves and gave some to me. In return, a few weeks later, I brought over brownies that I made. She has also given me apples and vegetable plants. So, when I went home to the mountains, her husband asked me to pick up sorghum and honey, the staple items of my region.

Thus, because we are part of a group that shares foraged and grown food items, we are a “band, the form of political organization associated with foraging groups, [involving] flexible membership and no formal leaders.” Indeed, everyone in my group is either “related through kinship,” which comprises most of the group, or they are neighbors or people with whom we have a significant sort of friendship. We even “come together at certain times of the year” around holidays due to “foraging patterns and ritual schedule.” At these times, the men will go hunting either together or by themselves, and the women will have potlucks and exchange food items and recipes. Indeed, we even have an informal “leadership” because it is my grandmothers that host the holiday events.

If someone in the band breaks the norms of our group, they will face the typical small-scale

society form of “social control”—“shaming and ridicule.” Indeed, it is a norm in our group that neighbors should give to the correct person any mail mistakenly delivered to them. Recently, though, my neighbor Marty—who is Charlotte’s sister—gave away my $50 pair of shoes and kept for herself my $25 kayaking gloves, both items that I bought offline. I handled the situation “at the interpersonal level through discussion,” and she paid me back for my items. However, her remediation was helped along by the fact that Charlotte found out what Marty had done and rebuked her.


Apart from modern foraging and horticultural systems, though, everyone participates in the systems of pastoralism—“a mode of livelihood based on domesticated animal herds and the use of their products, such as meat and milk, for 50 percent or more of the diet”—and agriculture—“a mode of livelihood that involves growing crops on permanent plots with the use of plowing, irrigation, and fertilizer; it is also called farming.” All of the food we buy in the supermarket, or anywhere else, comes from pastoralism and agriculture.

Therefore, it is irrational that Barbara Miller should need to make it clear that the model in the book does not “imply a judgment about the sophistication or superiority of more recent modes of livelihood.” This is because all of these modes of livelihood still exist today in our modern society, as evidenced in my own life.

Chapters 9, 10, & 11

The most visible cultural differences arise in three basic areas: communication, religion, and art.

The first area, communication, is, in fact, the first way one can usually use to identify a person with a different background than themselves. Language, “a systematic set of symbols and signs with learned and shared meanings,” is the most obvious difference amongst cultures (190). If you and another person don’t speak the same language, then you can tell you are not a part of the same language meaning making group.

Indeed, “ethnocentric” principles come into play when one not only recognizes the different cultures behind languages but also applies a hierarchical class system to which language has priority (194). For instance, Miller says that “although sign languages are complete and complex languages in their own right, they are often treated as second-class languages” (192).

Eurocentrism also exists in language. The current view is that Americans are stupid for being largely monolingual. However, this view fails to take into account that languages are found much closer together in Europe than in America. Thus, languages are learned out of necessity rather than because of the universal higher intellects of Europeans.

Americans, sadly, are also proponents of an ethnocentric ideal, though. They tend to view the language or accents of the newest immigrating group as inferior. I have said before in my blog that my family ditched Gaelic and their Irish accents for just this reason. Immigrants that speak only Spanish, however, have it much harder because they have to learn an entirely new language and are expected to do so as soon as they enter the country. Most people with this American ethnocentric view also refuse to learn Spanish, denigrating the language as gibberish.

There are also gestures—“movements, usually of the hands, that convey meanings. Some gestures may be universally meaningful, but most are culturally specific and often completely arbitrary”—which most people rarely think about (192). Consequently, nonverbal communication can be one of the easiest ways to offend someone from a different culture. (That article is hilarious, by the way.) For instance, how close do you stand to someone? Do you really think about it, or do you just do it? Well, the distance between people is usually a reflexive thing, and when someone invades your bubble, you probably back away. However, in countries such as Spain, they stand much closer together. Thus, if you move away, it is seen as somewhat offensive. It is the equivalent of someone talking to an American but keeping a room’s length between them. You might begin to try to interpret the action within your own shared cultural meanings: “Oh man, I must not have put on enough deodorant today.”

Another sure fire way to offend people is by talking about—you guessed it—religion. I know they say “never talk about religion, sex, or politics,” but, hey, let’s give it a whirl.

First off, what is religion? According to Barbara Miller, “religion consists of beliefs and behavior related to supernatural beings and forces. This definition specifically avoids linking religion with belief in a supreme deity, because some religions have no concept of a supreme deity whereas others have multiple deities” (212). Huh? Basically, all religions believe—and you should know up front that I’m going with magical ponies as a generalization—in a magical pony, many magical ponies, or the disembodied idea of a magical pony. And their pony is pretty much always the best. (In case you were wondering, I’m Buddhist. I hold with the disembodied idea of a magical pony, a.k.a. karma.)

(And why wouldn’t I? She’s clearly so much more stylin’ than your pony.)

In magic versus religion, religion is seen as the higher class belief. This is not surprising as many foundational thinkers were deeply religious. Also, religions have a lot of practitioners that express their beliefs through modern writings. Even Miller refers to a “magical religion in the modern world” as “so-called Wicca” (213).

But, what is the difference between magic and religion? Well, it’s a pretty fuzzy distinction, but Miller quotes Sir James Frazer in saying that magic is “people’s attempt to compel supernatural forces and beings to act in certain ways” while religion “is the attempt to please supernatural forces or beings” (212).

(Magic = I COMMAND YOU TO FLY, PONY!)

(Religion = I will brush your hair if you fly, pony. Pretty please?)

Now, we move on to “expressive culture, or behavior and beliefs related to art, leisure, and play” (236). Let’s jump right in and discuss that age old question.

(How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? No, I mean the other question. Sadly, woodchucks are still disinclined to chucking wood.)

What is art? Surprisingly, Miller presents one of the best definitions I have heard. She says that “art is the application of imagination, skill, and style to matter, movement, and sound that goes beyond the purely practical” (236). This definition is a lot more inclusive than, for instance, Eurocentric views on high-art being the only true art form.

(You might know it as ‘It’s not art unless someone is naked.’)

It is important to remember that “all cultures have art, and all cultures have a sense of what makes something art versus non-art” (236).

Actually, it is best to remember that cultures have different meanings and values for everything, including communication, religion, and art. So, try not to take yourself too seriously. It is okay to form opinions about these areas based upon the context of your own culture and experience. In fact, I encourage it. However, don’t expect others to conform to your ideas, and don’t vilify them when their ideas conflict with your own.

My Cultural Roots, Continued

In my previous blog, I detailed my family's Irish-American heritage, and the practices that carried over into our modern day lives.

However, when my family arrived in the United States, our cultural differences were hardly celebrated. They moved, as stated earlier, in order to escape the potato famine. The Great Famine, as it is known in Ireland, was largely a manmade catastrophe. Aside from the potato,

there was a great deal of food—such as beans and wheat—being produced in Ireland. However, the British landowners exported most of their Irish tenants’ food back to Britain, even though the Irish were starving (Corrie). The British did so because they perpetrated this system upon the Irish for many years prior without consequence, and they generally considered the Irish to be subhuman. The United States, largely populated by descendants of the English, took a similar attitude to the gangly, starving, “uncultured,” burr tongued immigrants invading New York during the time of the famine. The papers of the era most memorably vilified America’s newest citizens by means of cartoons, often portraying the immigrants as gorillas

(A Dublin famine Irish-American monkey)

In order to fit into their new hostile environment, my ancestors—like many Irish-Americans—tried to abandon a lot of their former cultural practices. The dialect went first as it was the easiest way to single out the Irish from the non-Irish. The accent, however, did not completely disappear because it changed the regional dialects, such as giving the Appalachian accent

harsher R’s. The Gaelic language, on the other hand, did disappear. Irish-Gaelic had already flagged for years under British rule of Ireland. In the new country, without any use for or anyone to teach them the language, Irish-Americans simply lost their native tongue. Many of them, as my family did, also converted to Protestantism. This caused them to abandon the Latin that had been a necessity for church. Class and educational values additionally superseded their own beliefs—though this seemed a welcome change. The British rule in Ireland generally perpetuated a system of British landowners and Irish tenants class system (Corrie). As in many farming societies, the Irish were afforded little opportunity for education and generally saw little point to it. In the United States, however, the class system made social mobility possible—though they began at the lowest possible rung. In addition, the economy and government necessitated higher education. Gradually, my ancestor’s went from farmers, to factory workers, and then to small business owners. Each generation saw an increased level of education ending with myself being the first person in my direct line to attend college.

As I said in my previous blog, probably the least similar kinship and cultural system is the one of the modern American portrayed in the media—living away from family, being a

divorced/single parent, interacting with mostly the grandparents, not being expected to support the older/younger extended family. Furthermore, the current media also portrays all Caucasians
in the same light as the bland, elite, dominant class. Many tend to forget that Irish-Americans escaped from starvation and the life of the tenant farmer to come to the United States where they faced rampant racism. Many forget that it is only within the last fifty years that either an Irish-American or African-American president was elected—and President Kennedy was a descendant of the Ulster-Scots, the ruling class in Ireland (Corrie). In summation, no matter how similar or different Americans may look, beneath our shared culture lies a vast and exciting mixture of unique values.

Bibliography

A Dublin famine Irish-American monkey [Newspaper cartoon]. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.travelgolf.org/images/a_dublin_famine_irish_american_monkey.jpg

Corrie, E. (2011, September 22). Conflict and peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. Lecture
presented at Reinhardt University sponsored by The Year of Ireland Committee and the
Chaplain's Office, Waleska, GA.