Posted 11:49 by Mark Federman permanent link
Noble lies and Perpetual War

Those who think that there is not a deeply-rooted, non-partisan political philosophy that guides policy in the United States may be surprised... and those who do believe that an underlying ideology exists may have good reason for alarm. openDemocray has published an insightful interview with Shadia Drury by Danny Postel. Noble lies and perpetual war: Leo Strauss, the neo-cons, and Iraq describes "that the use of deception and manipulation in current US policy flow directly from the doctrines of the political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973). His disciples include Paul Wolfowitz and other neo-conservatives who have driven much of the political agenda of the Bush administration."

Strauss, an influential political philosopher who espoused, among other things, the usefulness of lies for political expediency, draws from the ancient writing of Plato to justify his view "that justice is merely the interest of the stronger; that those in power make the rules in their own interests and call it justice. ...The effect of Strauss’s teaching is to convince his acolytes that they are the natural ruling elite and the persecuted few. And it does not take much intelligence for them to surmise that they are in a situation of great danger, especially in a world devoted to the modern ideas of equal rights and freedoms. Now more than ever, the wise few must proceed cautiously and with circumspection. So, they come to the conclusion that they have a moral justification to lie in order to avoid persecution. Strauss goes so far as to say that dissembling and deception – in effect, a culture of lies – is the peculiar justice of the wise."

I am certainly no expert on Leo Strauss, and Shadia Drury does an excellent job of outlining the essence and consquences of his political philosophy in the article. However, it becomes eminently clear that the Bush Administration's deft use of television throughout the progress of the Iraq war (a topic about which I will be participating in a discussion on NPR's "The People's Agenda" next Friday, November 7 from 10 to 11 a.m. CST) is significantly informed by Strauss's views. Tactics such as the use of a relatively hot medium showing live reportage by embedded reporters, and the famous GWB as heroic fighter pilot event on the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, serve to demonstrate the White House's close adherence to Straussian advice: " there is no doubt that Strauss’s reading of Plato entails that the philosophers should return to the cave and manipulate the images (in the form of media, magazines, newspapers). They know full well that the line they espouse is mendacious, but they are convinced that theirs are noble lies."

There are some people who would see this mini-exposé as no more than one more entry in a long line of partisan, anti-Bush screeds. However, it is vitally important to understand that, in "reading" the mass-media coverage of politics, we must work diligently to reveal the unseen ground or context, to render explicit those cultural, philosophical and other influences that drive the dynamics and effects of the things we do see. Danny Postel and Shadia Drury do the world a great favour in shining a bright light on what was a relatively unknown political philosophy that is having a significant influence on the unfolding of world events.
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Posted 13:50 by Mark Federman permanent link
Twyla, the Brilliant Heretic

Yesterday, we completed the first phase of the publication of Senior McLuhan Fellow Twyla Gibson's Toronto School of Communication series. For anyone interested in how we, as a society, learned about the effects of instantaneous communications that Marshall McLuhan described, or if you are a student (or teacher!) of media and communications, the series is well worth reading. It shows the intellectual connection among Plato, Milman Parry, Rhys Carpenter, Eric Havelock, Walter Ong, Harold Innis, and of course, Marshall McLuhan, among others. Twyla describes the various "technologies of orality," including her startling discovery of "Plato's Code" - an esoteric structure to the early writings that came from an originally oral society.

Astute readers will note that Twyla has published this material - extracted from her Ph.D. dissertation - under a Creative Commons license. In her home discipline of philosophy, this is tantamount to heresy! After all, she was told, making her work freely available, and offering it to people to use, distribute and modify (subject to the provisions of the by-nc-sa license, of course) would allow people to steal her ideas. It's enough to give an old philosopher apoplexy!

In conversation, Twyla reveals that her ideas do neither her - nor anyone else - any good when they are "mouldering in a library somewhere." If they are out in the world, they can serve as a reference or they can inspire someone else to be creative or insightful. Having them freely available on the web allows Twyla the ability to easily point people to them as "the basics" of her work, while she moves on to even more interesting pursuits.

And what are those "more interesting pursuits?" Twyla is planning a book that uses her discovery to examine the opening chapters of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, tentatively entitled "The Genesis Code." Even more exciting is a "Plato's Code" re-interpretation of Hippocrates, as opposed to the Aristotelian analytic philosophy approach that is usually taken. This will give our modern society a fresh look at the entire field of bioethics, and may help us resolve some of the more difficult issues we face today.
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Posted 21:21 by Mark Federman permanent link
The nasty truth about the noble lie

openDemocracy has an insightful piece about the role of language in our understanding of what's happening in the world as presented to us in the news media. As some people are up in arms over the continued U.S. involvement in Iraq that can be traced back to the language used, it is equally important to realize what language is doing to the national psyche.

"Americans started playing fast and loose with the word 'war' in 1965, when Lyndon Johnson declared a 'War on Poverty' (while fighting an undeclared war in Vietnam). It was a worthy cause, and it was also a noble lie because you can’t literally fight poverty. Little harm was done because everyone understood the phrase as a metaphor. Next came the 'War on Drugs'. Again you can't literally fight drugs, but this war brought low-intensity conflict at home and abroad that has lasted for decades. Like a traditional war, the War on Drugs includes military violence, but it is also combined with police action at home, an unusual precedent for war. Finally, we have the 'War on Terrorism.' We’ve already been warned that the conflict will be conducted in secrecy over decades. The front is everywhere, although average citizens, leaders no more, may know little about its prosecution. 'War' and 'enemy' have become arbitrary, even surreal, concepts in the 21st century. Along with 'terrorist,' they are words used by officials to stigmatise independent thought. As Seymour Hersh recently discovered, even button-pushing journalists can be branded as terrorists if the truths they publish embarrass the government. Language is the ultimate ground of freedom. It serves us because it offers commonly agreed definitions that provide a foundation for debate. When rulers wrest control of words, they render discussion impossible. The newspeak envisioned by Orwell had a drab, North Korean-type feel. Today's newspeak is subtler. It doesn't limit discussion outright; instead it perverts the categories of thought, confusing issues for anyone who lacks the sophistication to recognise what's happened."

The article demonstrates a powerful reversal that has occurred in American politics and politic-speak. In Johnson's time, the "noble lie" was used as a metaphor for a noble cause - eliminating poverty. Today, what some people consider a less than noble lie is being used for what they say is a less than noble cause. McLuhan reminds us that "there is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening." It is vitally important that we all recognize what is happening, lest we succumb to the inevitable.
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Posted 15:39 by Mark Federman permanent link
Whack the Mayor!

Those whacky people at Office Politics are at it again. Just in time for the upcoming mayoralty election in Toronto, they have put up a new site, Whack the Mayor. The site allows you to (try to) whack outgoing mayor Mel Lastman (but he is an elusive one) and then whack the candidates based on the whacky statements they have made on various issues during the campaign. At the end, you have the compilation of statistics that act as a straw poll in what is the closest political race that we have seen in many years.
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Posted 20:05 by Mark Federman permanent link
A Little Slice of Heaven Right Here on Earth

My friend Arnold, the same one mentioned in the acknowledgements in McLuhan for Managers, has shuffled off the urban coil and taken up temporary residence in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. "Smack dab in the middle of Mexico lies one of this world’s most enchanting places – San Miguel de Allende. Founded nearly 500 years ago as a nexus for the local traffic in silver and gold, this stunningly beautiful Spanish colonial town was preserved as a national treasure in the early 1900’s, thanks to the persistence of its leading citizens and the foresight of the Mexican government of the day."

"Early in the year, I launched a new art gallery in Toronto. Several of the artists whose work we represented either lived or had spent some serious time in San Miguel. One artist in particular, Leonard Brooks – who at age 93 still lives in San Miguel – was well known for his paintings of both the town and the surrounding countryside.

As circumstances would have it, I was given the opportunity to sell my share of the gallery and do a bit of traveling. That same day, while wondering what to do with my newfound freedom from the daily grind, I unwrapped one of Leonard’s older paintings titled, San Miguel Sunrise. Instantly, I felt as if the universe was trying to tell me something. Right then and there, I decided that "someday" had finally arrived."

He has invited us all along on his adventure over the next few months as he posts photos and musings on his website. And with the weather here in Toronto turning decidedly late-fall/early-wintery, a little slice of heaven might be just what the doctor ordered.
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Posted 11:46 by Mark Federman permanent link
Why We Should Care

"I don't download music or movies. Why should I care about legislation that would "simply prevent consumers from illegal piracy, from mass distribution over the Internet." This is the reaction of many fine, upstanding, and unfortunately ill-informed citizens and legislators from around the world that are dealing with the issues - and the lobbying pressures - of the entertainment and software manufacturing industries. The problem is that we only realize the consequences of actions and decisions "through the rear-view mirror," as McLuhan reminds us - when it is far too late to correct what has turned out to be a very bad mistake.

This is the case with software patents gone wild to the point of reversal - preventing innovation as opposed to fostering innovation - and is about to be the case with the FCC's pending approval of the controversial Broadcast Flag in all U.S. entertainment and computing devices.

"But I'm not in the U.S., so I'm not affected," you might think. Not so - our global village conditions (see the earlier post) mean that economies and the flow of trade are indeed global. International free trade agreements, like the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas that intends to put the entire Western Hemisphere into one trading bloc, are mandating enforcement of U.S. intellectual property legislation in other sovereign countries.

In the case of the Broadcast Flag, as we wrote about several days ago, this ultimately means handing control of what you are allowed to experience in your home on your computer and home entertainment equipment to largely American corporations. It could mean that independent artists and film-makers would be unable to reach you (once again securing exclusive rights to creativity in the hands of a small number of corporations under onerous and one-sided contracts). It definitely would mean an end to open source software, especially in combination with the so-called Trusted Computing initiative and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The patterns and motives are unmistakeably clear.

Don't get me wrong. I do not support pirates. I do support artists, and those who help them along the way, being fairly compensated for their work. I do support copyright, and our use of Creative Commons for almost all our work here depends on the existence of strong copyright legislation - strong, but fair and balanced. I also support individual choice in what we use, see, hear and experience: One of the primary effects of instantaneous communications that McLuhan observed is the reversal of people from being passive consumers to active and prolific producers of content. Unfortunately, such massively disruptive change obsolesces the business models of many media companies that are unwilling or unable to respond appropriately, and instead attempt to nip the agents of change in the bud.

There is much discussion around the 'net on this issue. Here's the latest from Slashdot, for instance. More important to read, I think, is this dystopian parable by the inimitable Richard M. Stallman, entitled, "The Right to Read." At the end, in an updated note to the readers, Stallman observes, "Although it may take 50 years for our present way of life to fade into obscurity, most of the specific laws and practices described above [in the parable] have already been proposed; many have been enacted into law in the US and elsewhere. In the US, the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act established the legal basis to restrict the reading and lending of computerized books (and other data too). The European Union imposed similar restrictions in a 2001 copyright directive."

It is a frightening future we face, and one whose implications are not fully appreciated by legislators who, quite frankly, haven't the time to follow them closely. The arguments supporting the draconian and anti-competitive measures are convincing - doubly so when presented by professional lobbyists - and the nominal business interests at stake are visible in the popular mass-media: piracy, protection of intellectual property, online security, anti-spam. It is the unseen and non-obvious effects that concern us, and should concern you as well.
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Posted 01:37 by Mark Federman permanent link
A Student Asks About the Global Village

We often receive McLuhan-related questions from students of all ages from around the world. Among the most common are questions relating to McLuhan's notion of The Global Village. Today's letter is a case in point:

"I am a student from Australia. I am doing an essay regarding on global village. I hope you can help me a bit to understand more clearly about it for my presentation. It is fascinating to see what you have been said about the process of global village and it process and effect to the worldwide society. I have few question regarding this:
1. I found global viilage and globall village square are strongly related but i am wondering if there is any difference in it.
2. You have commented that the prospect of global village as a new sensory social form (i agree with you about this). But, i am not sure what do you mean that it would transcend the oppresiveness generated by analyctic and linear thinking.
3. Also, are you saying that global viilage most affected into media and its public relations? Does it affect much on global economy as much as in media?
4. Is that mean as the rising of global viilage, which you said about 30 years ago, do you think that this will begin democracy and wont affacted civilization in a negative way?"

Here is our response:

The notion of Global Village is perhaps best understood in two of his famous quotations: "The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village." (The Medium is the Massage, 67) and, "The speed of information movement in the global village means that every human action or event involves everybody in the village in the consequences of every event." (CounterBlast, 41)

What he meant by this was that instantaneous communications from anywhere on the planet - that he saw manifest in television in the 1960s - instantly involves everyone, and anyone, in the affairs of everyone else, regardless of where they reside. What occurs on the other side of the world affects me here in Canada, and you in Australia, both at the same time. We feel the pain and trouble of people at war in Africa or the Middle East, for example, as sure as if they were in our own country.

Such intimacy and immediacy mimics conditions in a tribal village; hence the reference to a village of global proportions, or "global village." Many people make the mistake of romanticizing the idea of a "village," thinking that McLuhan pictured an idyllic, almost utopian existence under conditions of instantaneous communications. Nothing was further from his mind. He said, "There is more diversity, less conformity under a single roof in any family than there is with the thousands of families in the same city. The more you create village conditions, the more discontinuity and division and diversity. The global village absolutely insures maximal disagreement on all points. It never occurred to me that uniformity and tranquillity were the properties of the global village … I don’t approve of the global village. I say we live in it." (From an interview with Marshall McLuhan conducted by Gerald Emanuel Stearn in McLuhan Hot & Cool, 279-280)

Global Village Square is a modern initiative of the McLuhan Program whose name is derived from McLuhan's notion of the global village. It is a project that will install "portals" connected via Internet-enabled videoconferencing technology located in public spaces in cities around the world. Pairs of cities will be connected in random rotation so that ordinary people can see and hear each other in life-scale.

To understand what McLuhan meant by the oppressiveness generated by analytic and linear thinking, you have to understand the effects of mechanization and literacy that were introduced by the invention of the Gutenberg press in the 15th century. When we take what was an integral process (e.g. creating a manuscript by hand) and mechanize it (via the press) we are in essence fragmenting the process and lining up the component parts in linear sequence. Think of a factory assembly line manufacturing things, as opposed to the thing being hand-crafted by a skilled craftsperson. Such fragmented linearity extended beyond the manufacturing process and significantly influenced our cognitive processes as well, in a classic example of "we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." Newtonian physics, for instance, is analytic, logical, sequential, linear and - as we now know from relativity and quantum mechanics - incomplete. Chaos and complexity theory, and properties of emergence are better non-linear and non-deterministic descriptors of the way our world actually works than was analytic linearity. However, we have been, and in many cases continue to be, conditioned by those (incomplete) linear conceptions of the world.

Instantaneous communications create conditions that reverse the former "oppressive" conceptions and enable our more complete and appropriate perception of the way the world actually is.

In answer to your question about global economy and its consequences, we can clearly observe that the global village has indeed extended to include all manners of global economics, from trans-national corporations, to large scale trading blocs like the EU, and organizations like the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization. These are very clear demonstrations of the manifestation of global village conditions that often lead to " discontinuity and division and diversity … [and] maximal disagreement on all points."

As far as enabling world democracy, the global village conditions create an interesting paradox. Instantaneous communications enable individuals from around the world to be able to take action, influence political processes like never before, and organize on a world scale. However, these same technologies enable governments to potentially wield greater force, conduct more invasive surveillance and exercise greater control over their populations. It is up to each of us, individually as literal citizens of the world, to behave reflexively in response to the ills and problems of the world. We must increase the volume of our collective voice and ensure that it is heard for the benefit of all humankind. Otherwise, we will indeed suffer the fate of maximal disagreement and continued hostility. But the choice - and the challenge - is ours, as we are now empowered as individuals by these same technologies. McLuhan reminded us that, "there is absolutely no inevitability so long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening." (The Medium is the Massage, 25)
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Posted 00:02 by Mark Federman permanent link
Through the Lens of Love - The Plight of Rwanda's Children

We received this notice recently. An important issue and a good cause:

Hope for Rwanda's Children Fund is pleased to present, in collaboration with "Passages to Canada," an initiative of the Dominion Institute, Through the Lens of Love, a documentary by Rwandan filmmaker Lama Mugabo, followed by a panel discussion on the status of children in Rwanda featuring Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwandan coordinator for "Remembering Rwanda," the international initiative to commemorate the Tenth Anniversary of the Genocide, and in conjunction with a panel of international authorities on the genocide including the film director and youth members of the HRCF 2001 summer journey to Rwanda.

Thursday October 23rd at 7:00 pm
The Bahen Centre
(University of Toronto)
40 St George Street, room 1130
Suggested donation $10 adults, $5 students

For further information go to www.hopefund.on.ca, or call: 416-609-9375

This short documentary illustrates the journey of Canadian teachers and students who traveled from Canada to Rwanda with the objective of gaining a first hand account of the state of Rwandan children in post genocide Rwanda. The story is narrated by the director who returns to the country of his birth following several decades living in exile. It is a cross-cultural experience story in which the Canadian visitors participate in a program organized by Hope for Rwanda's Children Fund in conjunction with its sister organization, the Tumurere Foundation. Through a unique collaboration, they impart technical skills to Rwandan youth, and in return, they gain information about the country's history and culture in a way they could never have learned by reading a book. Using a digital still camera, they teach Rwandan youth how to use the art of photography as a means to reflect on their own history and share their vision of Rwanda with the outside world.

Through the Lens of Love is a story of solidarity between Canadian and Rwandan people as a testimony that when people know, they are willing to extend a helping hand. Through the film, a window opens to the reality that Rwandans are not passive recipients of foreign aid, but a people who are resilient and fighting hard to succeed against all odds. The video is intended to serve as a discussion-trigger for educational purposes towards a better understanding of global issues.

Proceeds from this event will assist children in Rwanda. Hope for Rwanda's Children Fund is a registered Canadian Charity BN 88969 7363 RR0001.

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Posted 22:44 by Mark Federman permanent link
Land of the Free?

I just came across this weblog that chronicles, in her own words, Beate's ordeal at the hands of one Barry Carter, a U.S. Immigration agent at the Atlanta port of entry. This is the story that was reported in the Colorado Springs Gazette of which we wrote a week ago. Beate reports: "The 6 hours following that were rather phenomenal, and I held on to shreds of hope that I would not be deported. I was interrogated by a man who failed to make eye contact with me once, yelled questions across the entire office at me, went through my bag, read everything and took me apart... from my nationality, birth place, to where and why I studied in London to which church my parents attend... repeating to me over and over that I was failing to convince him that I was a permanent German resident. I answered everything truthfully having nothing to hide. My crime in a nutshell, if there is a nutshell in this case, is being engaged to an American and "never" living in Germany long enough to convince this one man that Germany is home. And so, it became clear that he was sending me "home" (whatever that was of course) I fail to know how really to convey the absolute fury and rage at his arrogant, rude, discriminating behavior. It took almost an hour to get all my fingerprints because they kept failing to do it correctly. He thought we had now reached a stage at which he could joke around with me. I resented this man so completely. All my belongings were taken, including all my jewelry and I was handcuffed and marched out with the other "detainees" to the van. It was reiterated on several accounts that "these were just proceedings, I was not a criminal…" Somehow they seemed to think this would make it more acceptable to me." The entire blog, Land of the Free? is worthwhile reading by everyone, on both sides of the political spectrum, who value the core beliefs that made America great.
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Posted 22:14 by Mark Federman permanent link
Mehr Linux, Mehr Freiheit - Now in Massachusetts

The Boston Globe reports that Massachusetts Finance Secretary Eric Kriss has issued a memo directing its technology acquisition towards a "policy of "open standards, open source" for all future spending on information technology." This continues the trend among federal, regional and municipal governments around the world to move away from proprietary software platforms wherever possible in a move to reduce expense and improve security.

In Munich, a candidate for municipal election used an election poster that translates as "More Linux, More Freedom," a reflection of the attitude from the first city in Germany to pass a law mandating open source software.

This poses an interesting challenge to the draconian measures to lock down software via software patents, (granting the right to innovate exclusively to large corporations) and the dreaded and unfortunately named "Trusted Computing" initiative from Microsoft. When open source is the law of the land, it will become increasingly difficult for legislators to grant the sorts of anti-innovation exclusivity that corporate lobbyists often seek. An injunction against an open source software developer, for instance, based on a misinformed award of a software patent, could upset many governmental applecarts. Legislators would then have the incentive to more carefully consider the ramifications of listening primarily to corporate lobbyists for large software and entertainment companies.

Slashdot discussion on the issue is here and here.
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Posted 14:23 by Mark Federman permanent link
Broadcast Flag Redux

Boing Boing calls for everyone to help the EFF fight the regressive Broadcast Flag, proposed by Hollywood and now under consideration by the U.S. FCC. Cory Doctorow notes, "This is a proposed technology mandate that would give Hollywood studios a veto over the design of the output and recording technologies that get built into DTV receivers -- which is by way of saying the stuff that we take for granted on our general-purpose machines, like CD/DVD burners, high-speed cabling standards like FireWire, and so on. ... What's more, the Broadcast Flag demands that approved technologies will have to be built to be "tamper-resistant." That's right, it bans open source for tech that can be used in DTV applications. ... The worst part is: there's no problem. Hollywood has made more money every single year since the last fight like this, over the VCR. Last year was the movie companies' best year since 1959 -- this despite a worldwide economic crisis! Hollywood doesn't dispute this, but they insist that since there *might* be a problem tomorrow, they need to take extrodinary measures today."

"Well, the FCC sought comment on this. They asked the public and other organizations to participate in the rulemaking, to help them make up their minds. EFF has been calling on our supporters to send notes into the Commission in opposition to this plan, and we've passed over 15,000 faxes onto the Commissioners' desks. Numbers count in this fight. When over 700,000 Americans wrote to the FCC on media consolidation, it so alarmed lawmakers that Fritz Hollings (of all people!) called for Congressional action to limit media consolidation. We need lots of people to write into the FCC asking them to set this proposal aside, and we want you to help." So go help already!
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Posted 13:10 by Mark Federman permanent link
Welcome Protectors of Our Security!

When I arrived home and opened my suitcase last evening, I found a little greeting card carefully placed atop my clothes. It read, in part,

"Notice of Baggage Inspection. To protect you and your fellow passengers, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is required by law to inspect all checked luggage. As part of this process, some bags are opened and physically inspected. Your bag was among those selected for physical inspection." It went on to explain how the contents were removed, inspected and replaced, and if I had locked the bag, (I didn't) the lock would have been broken, and they "sincerely regret" that they aren't liable for damage. They even direct the traveller to a website for "packing tips and other suggestions tghat may assist you during your next trip."

Well I, for one, feel safer knowing that there is 100% baggage screening (it's only taken 30 years or so since the first aircraft hijacking for the world to become really serious about air travel security). And, it is far less of an inconvenience for my bag to have been inspected in the bowels of one of the airports through which I travelled on this trip, as opposed to out in public while I stand in a long queue of fellow inspectees. But I also suspect that, possibly because of my several trips to and from a variety of European airports this fall, that I am now on the TSA's watch list. My apologies to the other Mark Federman, who is apparently famous for his smoked salmon and chopped herring on the Lower East Side of Manhatten.

However, when I checked the referral log to this weblog, I suddenly felt a lot less secure and a lot more spooked. Literally. You see, I noticed that one visitor had arrived at the weblog via a Google search of my name. Who was checking me out, I wondered. Turns out that the visitor's domain was usdoj.gov, the U.S. Department of Justice, J. Ashcroft, prop. And the checking out occurred precisely while I was waiting for my connectiing flight back to Toronto in Cleveland Airport. Fortunately, nothing untoward happened, except for a last minute plane change just before we were to board the aircraft in Cleveland.

For the record, just because I don't agree with many of the policies of the current GWB Administration, and some of the more contitutionally-questionable activities of our friends at the DOJ, doesn't mean that I'm anti-American - in fact, my attitude is quite the opposite, lamenting the loss of many of the ideals that were the foundation of the mightiest nation in history. And then it hit me: Perhaps by reading some of the material contained in this weblog, those in authority might have their thinking and worldview expanded, even slightly. They may even begin to question whether there may be other approaches that could be even more effective in eliminating world terrorism. So, Welcome Protectors of Our Security! Come in, stay awhile, read and think!
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Posted 10:58 by Mark Federman permanent link
McLuhan for Managers - Review in the Globe and Mail

Here's something I missed while travelling: Harvey Schachter reviewed McLuhan for Managers in last Wednesday's Globe and Mail. He does a fine job in summarizing the book (thanks Harvey!) and makes the observation that he: "was often not satisfied that using McLuhan was really telling me anything I couldn't have figured out easily through normal thought. But the tetrad tool with its four quadrants can be quite useful..." In making this comment, he characterizes one of the main points of the book, and brings up the theme of Chapter 2, entitled, "What Haven't You Noticed Lately?"

Everything we think of as managers can be arrived at in many different ways. There are ads that show people being inspired with managerial insight by how a drinking straw bends, or by a passing comment overheard in a coffee shop. The problem is that there are so many things that we think of through normal thought that we are often overloaded - not just with information, but with answers and ideas as well. McLuhan told us "In a global information environment, the old pattern of education in answer-finding is of no avail: one is surrounded by answers, millions of them, moving and mutating at electric speed. Survival and control will depend on the ability to probe and to question in the proper way and place." (Laws of Media, 239) The various probing techniques we introduce and describe in McLuhan for Managers are ways for people to sort out all the answers, and especially to notice the important ones that might slip by our attention because because we've become distracted by all the rest.
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Posted 12:20 by Mark Federman permanent link
Localization World - Stuff I Didn't Know About Africa

Eric Chinje, Veronique Danforth and Ida Mori from the World Bank "introduced" Africa to a very international crowd. Mr. Chinje was originally from Cameroon, was educated in the U.S., returned to Cameroon and is now resident in the U.S. working for the World Bank with a focus on Africa. He noted that, of the 53 countries in Africa, only 5 are "in conflict" today. Of 800 million people, 28.5 million have HIV-AIDS, and there are 10.8 million AIDS orphans. There is a 62% literacy rate on the continent, and that continues to grow. 20% of the people speak English, another 20% speak French, and 12.5% speak Arabic. Another 20% of the people speak one of 55 "local languages," although there are, at current count, 2,662 living languages on the continent. Africa currently represents about 1.7% of the world's GDP, and its growth is about 3% per year which is more than the world's average GDP growth overall. Communications and connectivity continues to grow throughout Africa. In fact, there are slightly more Internet users on the continent than there are people with private access to (both landline and mobile) telephones. He noted especially that Africa represents a potential for tremendous growth in markets and development, with some countries - Seychelles and Mauritius, for example - becoming quite prosperous.

I spoke with Mr. Chinje after his talk about issues relating to the "brain drain" and economic corruption. He said that the flow of educated people directly corresponds to political stability. In any given country, when the political situation is relatively stable, educated ex-pats return to their native country to take advantage of the potential for economic growth. Instability and widespread corruption, of course, drives people away. He noted that one of the most important things that the world could do systemically to help Africa and its development is to eliminate international banking havens and banking secrecy. Doing so would eliminate the ability for some African politicians to embezzle the wealth from their country's resources. Another side benefit of such an action would be to cut off a major conduit for funding that supports world terrorism. The world could do a lot worse!
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Posted 11:20 by Mark Federman permanent link
Localization World - The Borderless Brand

I'm at the Localization World conference in Seattle this week. The morning keynote was given by Marcio Moreira, the Vice Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of McCann-Erickson WorldGroup, and Worldwide Director of Multinational Accounts. It is under his watch that the remarkably successful MasterCard "priceless" campaign thrives worldwide. Moreira spoke about "The Borderless Brand" and managing what he calls the "DNA" of a global brand. In managing a "borderless brand," it is not enough to simply translate advertisements to other languages, or to show people from a local country. Instead, he refers to his "4 Rs":

• Recognize the culture of the category


• Reflect the culture of the brand


• Respect the culture of the consumer


• Respond to the culture of the mindset

To successfully make a brand's DNA is to establish a compelling connection between the special qualities of the brand and its constituency's desires. To manage the DNA of a global brand,

• Establish a well-defined core competency


• Identify a well-defined like-minded constituency


• Develop a compelling unique personality for the brand


• Develop an organic interactive capability


• Capture virtual, real-time consumer insights


• Create imaginative insight interpretation


• Remember that the brand is a lifestyle enhancement, not a cultureal infringement.

Perhaps the best example of an imaginative insight interpretation is the MasterCard "priceless" campaign. The idea behind the worldwide campaign is not to emphasize what the card can buy, or the number of locations it is accepted, but rather to emphasize the things in life that matter, those things that are "priceless."
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Posted 13:08 by Mark Federman permanent link
Homeland Insecurity

The Colorado Springs Gazette reports this unfortunately not surprising story. It describes how a German national, the fiancée of an American who actually works in homeland defense, who had all of the appropriate visas, proof of identity and German residency, was prevented admission to the U.S. at Atlanta, handcuffed, held without charge in a detention centre with criminals for 20 hours, and then deported. All of this, despite the fact that her visa had been approved and issued by the American Consular Office in Frankfurt, and that her would-be hosts in the U.S. vouched for the fact that she was indeed going to return to her family in Stuttgart.

"Beate and Hughes {the financée/visitor and her American future husband, respectively] are baffled over her treatment and wonder if Carter [the border guard], who told Hughes he was “a good ole boy from Tennessee,” made a judgment based on her ethnicity. Beate also wonders if there’s a bias against Germans because their country didn’t join the United States in the war against Iraq."

Because such arbitrary turn-aways at American ports of entry are commonplace today, this incident in and of itself, again unfortunately, almost seem to no longer merit comment. However, there is the little niggling matter of Laws of Media effects to consider.

We know that any medium pushed beyond the limit of its potential will reverse what were its original characteristics. Thus, "homeland security" at some point reverses into homeland insecurity. Our job is to discover the circumstances under which such a reversal occurs and, presumably, to avoid them.

This case, and hundreds like it, may provide the needed clue. U.S. Immigration officials have absolute power at the border, and their decisions and actions are not subject to judicial review. In many cases, I'm sure they have prevented all sorts of unsavoury, risky or generally undesirable types from entering the country, as well they should. However, the power and lack of oversight that border agent Barry Carter used to prevent Beate from entering could just as easily be subverted to allow the illegal entry of just the sort of people from whom the U.S. is attempting to protect itself. Are 100% of the U.S. border agents incorruptible? For the safety of the United States, I sure hope so.

"When the superpower of the world, the country that lauds freedom and democracy is the one that’s causing this injustice to a person who has gone through the system perfectly legally and has done nothing wrong and yet their response is the exact same as to a felon, obviously we’re distraught." The systemic inability to distinguish between legal visitors and felons raises significant reversal concerns that should serve to raise the level of distress among all citizens.
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Posted 11:41 by Mark Federman permanent link
Shifting the DMCA

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the United States is a law whose intent it was to protect copyright property from so-called pirates. The act makes it illegal for people to circumvent any digital copy-protection mechanism, or even to publicize such circumventions. The act is extreme to the point of reversal: There have been lawsuits brought under the provisions of the act against the makers of garage door opener remote controls, the makers of after-market printer cartridges, and now, (threatened) against a Ph.D. candidate for mentioning the use of the keyboard shift-key to bypass the "autorun" function in Microsoft Windows when inserting a CD.

To be "fair," and I use the term very loosely, "SunnComm CEO Peter Jacobs charged that Halderman's [the Ph.D. candidate] report was inaccurate. He said the Shift key was not a workaround and called it a "design element" of the system. And the issue isn't the Shift key. Instead, he explained that the company was upset that Halderman disclosed the copy-management file names and directions on how to remove them. "I don't think researchers have a right to publish a 'how-to' on how to perform illegal activities under the guise of research," Jacobs said. "I think the DMCA says pretty clearly that one shouldn't publish circumvention solutions that protect people's digital property."

The fact is that Jacobs's reconsideration comes after wide ridicule throughout the online community - including the tongue-in-cheek call for a DMCA lawsuit against keyboard makers for including an encryption circumvention device in their product - the shift-key. (Although, technically speaking, there are many non-infringing uses for the shift-key, and hence it would not fall under the restriction of the DMCA...) There are two big "howevers:" However number one is, it is well known that "security through obscurity" effectively results in no security at all. Security measures need to be published, peer-reviewed and ultimately strengthened in the cold light of day. However number two - and this is the big one - is that the inventiveness of potential litigants clearly demonstrates the inadequacy of the DMCA as it is currently written; its implications are indeed startling. For instance, how many of you buy "genuine GM parts" for your GM car? Or genuine Maytag parts for your Maytag washer? Put up your hand if you have ever bought after-market replacement parts for anything you own.

All of you with your hands up (in the United States, for now) could potentially be under arrest, or at least faced with a DMCA lawsuit the moment manufacturers follow Lexmark's lead in putting an "encryption chip" in the parts that allows the original device to detect whether or not the replacement part is an acceptable (ie. "genuine") part. Although this is sufficiently disconcerning, there is an even more frightening possibility ahead. In the most recent trade talks with Chile, the United States trade commission has insisted that Chile enact DMCA-like legislation as a precondition for freer trade with the U.S. In this case, and in many others (Singapore is the next on the hit list), the United States is using its trade muscle to force countries to enact bad legislation that would do them more harm than good. Chile, an economically emerging country, can ill-afford to thumb its nose at the potential of the United States's market size. As we, and many other people, have observed, the extension of protection of intellectual property to such an extreme reverses from fostering innovation to hampering innovation and development through the accumulation of "defensive patent portfolios" and the attempted elimination of competition, as we have seen in the garage-door-opener and Lexmark cases. This, too, is something that developing countries can ill-afford. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is taking the lead here, but we must all ensure that elected representatives in all parts of the world fully understand what is at stake.
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Posted 16:44 by Mark Federman permanent link
Understanding Me: Lectures and Interviews by Marshall McLuhan

The Globe and Mail has Bruce Powe's excellent book review of Understanding Me: Lectures and Interviews by Marshall McLuhan, edited by his daughter, Stephanie McLuhan and David Staines. Powe describes the intentions of the editors: "Give us a picture of McLuhan in process, the man swiftly jabbing toward often stark epiphanies about how we are being unconsciously processed -- shocked, stunned -- by electricity. His was a mind half at odds with the ecstasies of the new energies, and half-fascinated by the potential of a nerve-end nirvana, new harmony in the extensions of screen and microphone. This book evokes his spirit in a fearless trajectory toward . . . the future."

According to Powe, they accomplished their task admirably. " Understanding Me recollects McLuhan's fresh epiphanies and helps to open his insights to reinvention and amplification. ... The supreme McLuhan paradox remains -- so the often erudite essays in Understanding Me inform us -- we must be literate to wholly comprehend the patterns of the non-verbal. A book may tell us to gaze between and beyond the words on the page." This one will be on my wishlist for the holiday season!
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Posted 11:34 by Mark Federman permanent link
McLuhan for Managers Excerpt in Today's Globe!

Woo hoo! The Globe and Mail published an excerpt from McLuhan for Managers in today's career section. A half-page, above the fold, with an additional column and a half inside, and a great picture of Marshall to boot! The excerpt is taken from the section on management cliches. Unfortunately, it's not available online, so you have to buy the paper paper to read the excerpt. Or, better yet, buy the whole book here or here or in most walk-in bookstores across Canada.
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Posted 10:46 by Mark Federman permanent link
Terra Nova - Castronova and Company Blog on How Virtual Becomes Real

Two of my favourite observers on the cross-over between the virtual and real worlds, Edward Castronova and Julian Dibbell, along with Dan Hunter, Greg Lastowka and Nick Yee, have started a blog called Terra Nova. It deals with the completely fascinating issue of how economies that exist in MUDs MMORPGs and other virtual environments become effectual and tangible in realSpace via the medium of gaming. The questions raised in this transformation have significance for how we conduct ourselves and our affairs throughout our society. As Lawrence Lessig reminds us, "Code is Law."
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Posted 16:33 by Mark Federman permanent link
Hasta la Vista, Democracy

The recall election in California has the appearance of being the epitome of democratic processes. A restive public that becomes dissatisfied with the leader it chose in the previous election need not wait until the end of the mandate. With enough names on a petition, the leader must put his public support on the line. In the Canadian (and British) House of Commons, this is called a motion of non-confidence. In the United States, it is called Participatory California Democracy.

There is, of course, the wee matter of the reversal law of media - when a medium is extended beyond the limit of its potential, it will tend to reverse what were its original characteristics. In this case, extreme participatory democracy reverses into a tyranny of the majority. Further, the basis of representative democracy - that the average person is unable to understand the full implications of policy issues, so we elect people to deliberate and make the difficult decisions on our collective behalf - is undermined.

Was former Governor Davis a bad leader? It is clear that California is in somewhat of an economic mess. It is with no small amount of irony that one might observe that at least part of the mess is due to past voter initiatives that hamstrung state governments. Be that as it may, Californians want clear leadership, new ideas and initiatives. Instead, they chose for themselves a fictional character as governor. They didn't choose Arnold Schwarzenegger for his financial prowess, his innovative ideas or his platform of reform initiatives. Instead, they chose Arnold the action hero - The Terminator - because of his celebrity and renown. In doing so, the electoral process has become the triumph of style over substance for a country where the cult of celebrity, and being famous for being famous, has been elevated to new heights... or sunken to new lows, take your pick.

For Schwarzenegger, it is the realization of the archetypal American Dream - a poor immigrant arrives in the land of opportunity not even speaking the language. He works hard, becomes successful, rich and famous, marries a member of American royalty and becomes, if not President (as being a natural-born American is a requirement for that "exalted office" - current occupant notwithstanding), then the next closest thing thereto.

Californians, however, have circumvented both the process of democracy and its intent. They have instead replaced it with a popularity contest in the best tradition of the Hollywood game show.

Update Ross Mayfield has an additional thoughtful commentary on why the recent gubernatorial recall race in California was not only a bad idea, but out of step with our times.
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Posted 08:22 by Mark Federman permanent link
Global Civil Society

I attended an interesting talk yesterday, given by Prof. John Keane from the University of Westminster, England. He spoke about "Global Civil Society," the current "globalizing project," (as he puts it) - one that differs significantly from prior unilateral attempts. Global civil society refers to world-wide non-governmental structures that include institutions, independent media and grassroots mobilizations that span everything from sports and philanthropy to business and politics. It is indeed a form of society as it has its own social processes; it is more of a "society of societies." Keane described it as a constellation of institutions and organizations through which many people will interact on a global scale with more or less shared norms of behaviour.

Global civil society tends to peaceful existence, despite occasional violence at the edges or in relatively isolated pockets. Think global anti-Iraqi-invasion peace protests as opposed to "the Battle of Seattle." It typically contains mechanisms, organizations and initiatives to repair its torn fabric brought about by violent outbursts; its basic non-violent respect for others tends to override nationalistic or ideological concerns, thereby encouraging compromise. However, because of its diverse, conflicted and ambiguous nature, global civil society contains the strong potential for violence and emnity - precisely the characteristics about which Marshall McLuhan warned us in his famous statement about the Global Village: "The more you create village conditions, the more discontinuity and division and diversity. The global village absolutely insures maximal disagreement on all points."

Global civil society has politically and legally framed interconnections that transcend nations and spans the globe, each of which is relatively fragile and subject to geographic limits. It is balanced by flows among them, and their interaction leads to an emergence of significant and influential global effects. It is important to note that global civil society is not a world government, but a complex ensemble of non-governmental institutions with the ability to interact. These interactions lead to emergent global effects that are not predictable by looking at the actions of any one, or even several, of the individual organizations.

Keane is a historian and a political scientist. It is completely interesting to me that only a week before, I was at a conference in Bratislava at which one of the keynotes was given by Roemer van Toorn of the Berlage Institute in The Netherlands. van Toorn is an architect, yet he described almost the same concepts using the language of architecture, design and what he calls "the new modernism" - post-postmodernism, if you dare. In particular he spoke about issues regarding the formation of individual identity and our relationship in a "new modern" world.

In an age of instantaneous communications that eliminates the effects of geographical distance and time zones, identity is oriented by means of "scapes" that juxtapose multiple diverse environments from around the world. Thus the future, especially for emerging societies, is always elsewhere, constantly in flux, formed according to relational, as opposed to regional, patterns. Trans-national traffic of ideas and experiences that are now abstract, form a new order that is ironically and paradoxically unstable, irregular, incomplete and undefined relative to our historical and physical experience. This is the new norm to which we are slowly becoming socialized. It is "broken" in our conventional sense, but that is its virtue in the reformation of a global society. In this case, the state of being broken is not a destructive force but a liberating one. As McLuhan said: "Breakdown is breakthrough."

In experiencing the new modernity, with all its instability and ambiguity, we each reflexively experience our world and the simultaneous relations that are forging a new global culture. Through an experience that is at once both direct and vicarious, each of us is moved to consider and take action relative to the problems we, as individuals, perceive in the world. Unintended consequences abound, and our ability to be appropriately reflexive is the key to the new organization of our lives in a global civil society characterized by the new modernity.
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Posted 08:36 by Mark Federman permanent link
Waging War Against Illness, Not Drugs or People

Two stories in today's Globe and Mail caught my attention today. Both are interesting in themselves, but together, they provide the sort of anti-environment that helps us understand the nature of our nation as a medium. In the first article, Canada's Reseach-Based Pharmaceutical Company's, the lobby group for the brand-name manufacturers, agreed to allow the federal government to pass legislation exempting generic drug companies from regulations that make it illegal for them to produce cheaper versions of brand-name companies' drugs for export to third-world and developing nations. In particular, this would include modern, but prohibitively expensive, treatments for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. "Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies, a lobby group for the brand-name firms, said in a press release that it recognizes that Canada "has an opportunity to show international leadership" by changing patent laws to improve access to drugs for the diseases." The Canadian lobbyists' attitude should be contrasted with the statement from their "international" (read American) counterpart, which pooh-poohed the idea while threatening the withdrawal of research investment in Canada. Constrast it as well with the second article that caught my eye.

The Globe also reports that, "in a major acceleration of its war against cheaper imported drugs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it will crack down on mail shipments from Canada." This, of course, is because our domestic supply of pharmaceuticals from the "Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies" - the same ones that create the overly expensive medications south of the border - is somehow "illegal and unsafe." This is despite the fact that "the House of Representatives passed a bill last summer allowing the reimportation of U.S.-made drugs from Canada at lower prices, but the White House and some influential senators are opposed, and it may never become law." In this case, the business interests that can exert extreme political pressure are reversing what nominally is a war against "illegal" drugs into a war against the sick and the elderly.

Is the Canadian pharmaceutical industry becoming soft and less competitive in its old age? Don't count on it. Rather, they understand the messages - the ground effects - that their actions will have. In other words, they can think through the consequences of their actions. By permitting patent exemptions that could have the effect of reducing their income and profit and understanding the volume of affordable medications that would go to the developing world, they are counting on the reversal effects to kick-in over time. Improving basic health enables a stable economic infrastructure to be established in these countries. Stable economic infrastructures create new markets, with a long-term, sustainable ability to sell higher priced, higher margin products and services. This is precisely the type of innovative and insightful thinking we describe in detail and illustrate in our new book, McLuhan for Managers. Darn clever, those Canadians.
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