Posted 13:57 by Mark Federman permanent link
Fool Me Once, Shame on You. Fool Me Twice...

Many of you have probably seen this Flash Mind Reader. It's a fun parlour trick that takes a couple of minutes to figure out, but anyone who has made it past middle-school math can deal with it.

What was somewhat surprising to me was the context in which it was shared: a forwarded, forwarded listserv email originally from a friend of a friend of a friend, that pointed to a forum with the rather mystical name of "The Circle of Harmonic Concordance." (Don't bother clicking on it, unless you're into new age-y pseudo-mysticism.) On the particular thread relating to the trick, many people were astonished that, somehow, this online website had mystical powers that perhaps revealed some universal truth of existence. Would that philosophical existentialism and epistemology were that easy. (It would put upwards of a third of all university professors out of business!)

What is actually revealed here is the willingness of so many people to accept at face value, the "truth claims" we are exposed to each and every day, in almost every facet of our lives. Our education system teaches in a particular way, based on a particular syllabus, because, we are told, this is best for the children. Our business organizations are organized in a particular way because, we are told, it is most efficient, effective or provides the best service to our customers. Political decisions are made that affect hundreds of millions of people all around the world because, we are told, this is the way to emancipation, freedom, liberty, and prosperity for all.

The operative phrase in all of these - and many more examples that I could suggest - is "we are told." We are indeed told what the tellers of these claims believe is the truth, at least much of the time. But consider this: Is the current President of the United States a liar? Is the former Prime Minister of Canada a liar? How about the current one? Is a professor that teaches "Leadership" or "Globalization" or "Feminist, Psychoanalytic, Semiotic Sociology" or even "Applied McLuhanistics" to graduate students a liar (not meaning to impugn anyone's reputation here)? In the vast majority of cases, I would say the answer is no, if we measure "liar" according to intentionality to deceive by deliberately promoting that which they know incontrovertibly to be false, and have not convinced themselves could possibly - unders some circumstance - be true. In other words, the person could be misinformed, driven by overriding ideology, deliberately misled by others, simply unaware... In other words, the person may be naive or a fool, but a naive fool is not necessarily a liar.

The larger issue here is that many of us are unwilling to think beyond what we have been told is "the way things are." This happens in tricks like the one at the beginning of the post, but it also happens in education, politics, business, economics, human rights, and even religion and spirituality. We must learn to properly question and probe everything, and especially our own beliefs and values, so that we can be sure that someone hasn't simply been pulling a trick on us that has governed our entire lives, and in turn, caused us to impose on the lives of others.

As Marshall McLuhan reminds us, "To understand media, we must probe everything... including the words... and ourselves."
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Posted 15:44 by Mark Federman permanent link
Library of Congress Digital Future Series - Quantum Computing

Derrick de Kerckhove hosts the Library of Congress's Digital Future series that is being broadcast on C-SPAN. On Monday, January 24, at 18:30, "Juan Pablo Paz, a quantum physicist will discuss how quantum computing, now in its development stages, will change again the way we collect, store and distribute information." There is also a live webcast of the event. The talks so far have been fascinating; it's worth tuning/clicking in!
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Posted 08:29 by Mark Federman permanent link
Academic McLuhan

If you would like a rare view of someone experiencing the McLuhan Vortex - McLuhan, of course, having been strongly influenced by the "Vorticists," Eliot, Yeats, Joyce - you simply must see the course weblog for this semester's Mind, Media and Society II. On the blog so far, class members are asked to reflect, react and respond to both selected readings and the class seminars. "Bad" Bruce has certainly been caught in the McLuhan vortex, as you can tell from his response to this passage from Understanding Media:

Thus the age of anxiety and of electric media is also the age of the unconscious and of apathy. But it is strikingly the age of consciousness of the unconscious, in addition. With our central nervous system strategically numbed, the tasks of conscious aware ness and order are transferred to the physical life of man, so that for the first time he has become aware of technology as an extension of his physical body. Apparently this could not have happened before the electric age gave us the means of instant, total field-awareness. With such awareness, the subliminal life, private and social, has been hoicked up into full view, with the result that we have "social consciousness" presented to us as a cause of guilt-feelings. Existentialism offers a philosophy of structures, rather than categories, and of total social involvement instead of the bourgeois spirit of individual separateness or points of view. In the electric age we wear all mankind as our skin. (Understanding Media, p. 47)

For those who are interested in more traditional - that is P.O.B.-oriented - scholarship, you may be interested in a new paper that discovers and offers a proof for The Fifth Law of Media [pdf]. This paper puts forward the hypothesis that McLuhan's works, from Understanding Media to the posthumously published Laws of Media, comprise a narrative arc that replicates the Homeric process of oral tradition, and that the latter book itself is a reflection of that arc. Within the context of the replication, and based on hidden clues within Laws of Media, McLuhan has carefully placed the fifth law as a hidden ground to his entire body of scholarship.

Finally, if you teach media or communication studies at either the senior high school or university levels, you may be interested in some of the course materials we use here at the Program. Some of our faculty (including me) release our materials under a Creative Commons license. Please contact us if you are interested in exploring connections.
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Posted 11:30 by Mark Federman permanent link
The People Who Owned the Bible

This one will certainly make its way around the 'net in a hurry. Wil Shetterly's It's All One Thing has a wickedly insightful parable/satire of the copyright extension business called, The People Who Owned the Bible. Let s/he who is without derived works cast the first lawsuit.
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Posted 09:56 by Mark Federman permanent link
Real(?) Mail and Magic

"Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds," said Herodotus, some 2500 or so years ago. Throughout most of my life, putting a stamped letter into the red postbox that dotted street corners around Toronto was as good as delivered to the intended recipient - sometime within in the week, give or take a few days. My aunt, who lived in Marseilles for several years a couple of decades ago, told me of postal delivery twice a day, with people waiting by their letterboxes for the arrival of the courageous courier.

I was reminded of these quaint customs recently when my daughter decided to send letters to several members of Canada's Parliament. (As an aside, as part of her Grade 10 Civics Course, my daughter has become involved in Digital Copyright Canada, and especially the campaign to present a petition to the House asking the standing committee reviewing Canada's pending copyright reform to hear from others, in addition to the big content lobby groups. If you are a resident of Canada and care about creative control, innovation, educational access to materials, freedom of speech and being able to decide for yourself how, when and on what you enjoy your entertainment, you probably want to sign the petition. If you're in Toronto, you can drop by the McLuhan Program and add your name and voice to an important campaign.)

Upon depositing several addressed and stamped envelopes into the postbox, she turned to me and asked, "How do I know that these letters will get to the members of Parliament? It seems weird to me - I put these letters in this red box, and magically they arrive in Ottawa. It's so unreal."

My response: "And sending an email, instant message or SMS is more real to you?" As I expected, her answer was, "of course."

This is a case-in-point of the reversal effected by the acceleration of instantaneous communications, and the significant difference in grounds between the "fogey generation" - everyone over 20 - and those who have been socialized entirely within an environment of pervasive proximity via ubiquitous connectivity. To my daughter, the electronic delivery of mail, or other forms of connection, is perceived as entirely real. It is her daily - or should I say, minute-by-minute - experience. Conversely, the physical mechanisms of the traditional postal service - put an envelope in a red box and somehow it dematerializes and reappears at the appointed address - is in the realm of magic. You know there is some complex mechanism involved, but from outward appearances, it defies perception within the contextual ground of pervasively connected tribal experience.

Perhaps it's time to probe the famous Arthur C. Clarke quotation. Now, it has become "Any sufficiently obsolesced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

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Posted 15:26 by Mark Federman permanent link
"The Medium is the Message" vs. "Content is King"

Jay Rosen of PressThink is posting his top ten journalistic ideas of 2004. His latest, idea #6 observes that "Content Will be More Important than its Container." This sounds dangerously close to the early Internet cliche of "Content is King," but, given Rosen's keen insight, he steers away from that mind-numbing adage. Instead, his point reaffirms the "McLuhan equation" that the medium is the message.

The point that Rosen makes quite clearly is that traditional journalism can no longer rely on its brand, or its "container," to justify its existence and readership. Indeed, he points to the disconnection between the New York Times's self-perception (and resultant deception) and reality:

I recall how astounded I was shortly after starting PressThink when I read an interview in Online Journalism Review with John Markoff, technology reporter for the New York Times, who said that in ten years "I assume that there will still be a paper, that I'll still be writing for paper and they'll still be killing trees a decade from now." When people ask him about having a weblog, he says he tells them: "Oh, I already have a blog, it's www.nytimes.com, don't you read it?"

That complacent and high handed interview today is instructive for anyone puzzling through Big Journalism's response to the Web. When Markoff said that in ten years he would still be "writing for paper," he had overlooked something rather important. Already in 2003, a majority of Times readers were online. Markoff and most of his colleagues believe they work for a print newspaper with an online edition. Psychologically, they're still writing for "the paper." For most of the readers, however, the New York Times is an online newspaper that also sells a print edition.

Old-style journalists - be they the New York Times or CBS Evening News (soon without Dan Rather) or Globe and Mail - truly believe that content is king, and that their content is their brand. To them, the story or analysis or opinion is relatively irrelevant, week-to-week. What matters is the continuation of their brand. For their tentative move online, they require tight control over who accesses their site, and precisely how that access occurs. The contents of the story matters less than the fact that the user access it via a controlled log-in on their site alone, essentially demonstrating that, for them, their brand, being the content of their web presence, is king.

But the medium is the message - the effect that they, and the tectonic shift in the act of journalism, has, determines the nature and characteristics of 21st century journalism in an age of ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive proximity. It's not that the rules have changed so much as the public has changed: Former consumers are now producers, and those in the corporate journalism business must adjust accordingly, or go the way of other container-disguised-as-content distributors, like the major record labels. Imagine getting sued for distributing "pirated" news. If you think it can't or won't happen, think again - legislation is already in place in many countries (via WIPO ratification) to make it happen.
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Posted 22:16 by Mark Federman permanent link
Embrace Uncertainty

This is more of a personal entry - if you prefer the slightly more official voice, please skip this one.

As we flip the calendar page to greet 2005, our wishes, prayers and perhaps most importantly, donations, go to our fellow Global Villagers in South Asia. As devastating as the tsunami was as it occurred, its aftermath that will be felt for years may be more so. As much as I have criticized the Bush administration over the past few years for many of its policies, I must offer kudos to George W Bush and his advisors for their current pledge of U$350 million of relief aid. Kudos as well to Japan, which just announced a pledge that is the equivalent of U$500 million, and to Canada's leaders that set the tone of bidding up aid earlier in the week with their announcement of $40$80 million. Kudos, too, to business leaders around the world who are pledging corporate donations that are adding up to many tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.

As politicians (yes, and terrorists/insurgents/evil-doers) of every stripe try to exert control over events around the world, it is Mother Nature who must remind us that "we may be in charge, but we are never in control." Perhaps this event will begin to help us realize that this one damp piece of rock that we all inhabit is indeed a very small place - too small and fragile, perhaps, to spend our time killing each other, and ourselves.

The issue of control of our lives cropped up when a friend wrote to me recently:

Dear Mark,
I hope all is well with you. I have been giving a great deal of thought to our conversation over lunch a few weeks back, when we were discussing our need to "control" the world(s) we inhabit. I am working on a paper which examines my own need for control as it is shaped by the dominant culture and how it impacts upon my health and was wondering where your research was leading you in this area. Is there literature relating to this topic? I can imagine you are busy and I don't want you to got to too much trouble but I would appreciate if you could point me in the right direction.
Take care,
Sue-Ann

I wrote what turned out to be a longish piece that began to chronicle my own journey of giving up control in favour of adopting a personal mantra of Embrace Uncertainty. I happened to share it with another friend, who shared it with her friend, and soon I had heard from several people who found my reflection both inspiring and uplifting. Because it is a more personal reflection that has little to do with my usual themes of McLuhan thinking, I won't post it here in its entirety. But if you'd like to read it, please follow the link.

To all who regularly read What is the Message, and to those who have happened here through the magic of serendipity, my very best wishes for a happy healthy, prosperous, and most of all, peaceful 2005.
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