Posted by moboid on February 21, 1996 at 01:02:18:
This is a mirror message of the one I emailed, so if you got that, don't bother with this.
I'd been putting this off a while but now I'm compelled to write, thanks to a few inspirational sources, including: _Alan Turing: The Enigma_ by Andrew Hodges, a recent essay called "Writing from the Body" by Nicola Griffith, and the hilarious "meat" scenario that Richard forwarded:
Could someone please explain to me the (probably wobbly) justification behind the claim that the ACTLab has "DECLARED INDEPENDENCE" a la J. P. Barlow? I mean, perhaps there is a useful grain or two of idea in his ridiculous essay, but *anything* that starts with the proclamation to the affect that "We" are of the Mind and that "They" are of the flesh _immediately_ gets my blood boiling. How dare he make a "revolutionary" proclamation and make the same damn mistake made by centuries of opressive ideology. We are NOT free ("independent") of the body! That is a fantasy that has been put six feet under for quite a few years now (granted, not nearly enough -- years OR feet), at least in ACTLab circles. How dare the ACTLab join in the folly? No one asked me about it, that's for sure.
Anyhow, if you'll notice, Barlow totally contradicts himself on this point. First he makes his initial claim:
>Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel,
>I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind.
Then he later tries to present some kind of holistic bliss of creation:
>In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of
>humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole,
>the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes
>from the air upon which wings beat.
But how can he make this claim when according to his previous assertions, our flesh is NOT a part of this seamless whole? My pleasure can't be digitized. (I'm not making a claim against the possibility here, only laying bare the inane assumptions which are clearly underlying Barlow's argument.)
But for me, here's the kicker:
>In our world,
>whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed
>infinitely at no cost.
What the human mind creates can't do SHIT if the human body doesn't get involved in there somewhere!!!
In conclusion, I quote Griffith (somewhat out of context):
>[W]hen I listened to that audience...I wanted to weep. Some of these people
>have internalized the idea that the body--and women's bodies in particular--are
>so foul, so impure and unworthy, such sad sacks of meat that there is no
>alternative but to look for ways to get rid of them. Some hate their bodies.
>They want to shed them like soiled clothing and live in the City of Mind, where
>all injustice will miraculously be left behind. But cyberspace is not heaven.
>Cyberspace is not nirvana.
OK, that's it for the night.
love, moboid