The Voice and the Eye: Social Movements, prequel.

Alain Touraine writes on page 78 of The Voice and The Eye:

“The representation of social movements that we have inherited from industrial society is as follows: a dominator imposes laws, beliefs and a political regime just as much as it imposes an economic system; the people submit to these impositions but revolt against them when their physical and cultural existence becomes threatened. This revolt is not only defensive, it is also a preparation for the future since it explodes the contradictions of the social order and destroys the barriers erected by individual interest and blocking the way for the general and natural progress of society. This vision conflicts with the idea of social movements as I have defined it over two vital issues” (Touraine, Alain (1981) The Voice and The Eye. An analysis of social movements. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Emphasis is mine)

I highlight this piece of text here since it pins down two things about Touraine I am working on and what also may be of interest to someone else. Social movements sit at the heart of society and without them there is no “real” movement in society. All societal change has to do with social movements that convey the energies of individual actors. The way Touraine explains this is elegant and very exact and is best found in the mentioned book The Voice And the Eye. I am currently working on the analysis of my first article so this is something I’ll be using later.

So, Touraine is using a very concrete example to tell us how his vision of social movements is different from all the other contemporary (it was published originally in French in late 70’s) accounts. Remember, at that time it was customary to (over) emphasize the Working Movements meaning to world history. Touraine is not saying that it’s not so but his account cautions us to attribute any collective phenomenon as a true social movement.

The representation of social movements in industrial societies miss the point of Touraines Social Movements in two key dimensions.

1. The actor (or a ‘group’) is not truly social. This is because the ‘revolt’ is only an expression of ad hoc tensions or a product of natural phenomena (people who are forced to act in order to save themselves, for an example). A true actor (or a ‘group’) is truly social: the tension is not in the situation of the revolt. The situation only expresses the tension but the movement is real and in the heart of the entire society. A social actor (or historical actor, as Touraine calls them) is defined by a social relation between it and the ‘other’ he/she is struggling against.

2. The action is not seen as emanating from society but it can only be understood by looking at what it is trying to achieve. This means, the social movement is reduced to it’s utopia: it has separated the original action from the interpretation of the action. A true Social Movement ‘happens’ right now. Utopia, or the alternative cultural relation of the revolting group is an important part of the Tourainean vision but it’s not the source of action as such. To be precise: the struggle creates it’s own aims: it is not going towards  a certain anticipated end but towards an end-in-the-making by the actors themselves.

Touraine himself gives an exhausting and careful explanation of what he sees as a Social Movement. On page 31 he writes:

“A Social Movement is the collective organized action through which a class actor battles for the social control of historicity in a given and identifiable historical context”.

And he elaborates this on page 77.

“A social movement is the organized collective behavior of a class actor struggling against his class adversary for the social control of historicity in a concrete community”.

 

 

What I will do this spring is an article where I will analyze certain aspects of Transhumanism (as a general term). I will try to see it as a historical actor, or, a genuine and real Social Movement. From now on I will not elaborate too much on the details but I will try to keep my thinking “out in the public” during the writing process of the article.

The Flow I keep missing

I’m sick and can barely speak. There’s no fever but I feel damn weak. Right now I’m not working on anything but had I the strength, I’d probably be sketching a new essay for IEET. I’m preparing a series of essays that cover technological progressivism from an activist stand point. So, when I get well, I’ll do that.

However now, I am listening to Spotify. Thanks to the latest update Spotify is now more social. Finding new and interesting music has always been a problem with the service but it seems they have given this issue some thought. The playlist feature that has been there for a while, is also something pretty new to me. So, as I began writing this I realized I had “tuned in” to the Flow Festival 2013 playlist.

If you could visit three Finnish summer festivals they would have to be Tuska, Ruisrock and Flow. For some reason I have missed all of them. Every year. I mean, it’s not like i’m “not that kind of a person” – I have been to Roskilde TWICE – but for some obscure reason I have never visited these three.

I think I’ll think about that and try t get some rest.

So far the human body is weak

Here’s to all ya Masters out there.

Sick. I can’t believe it. I am double sick. Last week I was issued sick leave from work due to a near-total-mental-collapse. That’s when I began thinking about research after a few months pause. I’m also changing jobs and the future work will be better for me.

But now, I’m sick. I had bubbles in my stomach last night and spent a few messy hours in the toilet. Aren’t you glad I told you that. 🙂

Perhaps it’s something I ate or then I caught the bug last night when I attended the first ever Master Class for a Good Society. It’s a two month program run by the University of Helsinki and LähiTapiola Group. Why this is is due to the fairly new idea of connecting university level education with businesses. This time the idea is to connect people from different fields (especially including the humanities) to the world of business and problem solving.

The program rests on the idea of Social Entrepreneurship or more widely “BIg Society”. It was a good start with, I think, 40-50 attendees. I sat in a table full of clever young professionals and one of the Mentors, a person I deeply respect, Outi Alanko-Kahiluoto form the parliament (The Greens of Finland party).

In any case, I’m sick now and I have to cancel my short talk at the Sociology Days in Turku. All is not lost since I did manage to solve some theoretical problems while working on the text. But, there is a sense of not belonging. They are thinking of revitalizing the Finnish Network for the Sociology of Knowledge and I hope they do and I hope I can be a part of it.

So far, waiting for my FrenchPress to hatch me a nice mug of strong, bacteria killing, coffee.

Stick your neck out

I began this day over a cup of coffee with a very inspiring chap from Ireland. Among other things he is a professional journalist so we began talking about international publishing. What else?

I mentioned him my blog and that it was supposed to be ‘a blog about my PhD’. “You never mentioned you had an English language blog”, he replied. Due to my almost total lack of self esteem I apologized and gave him the address.

In a way, that’s the reason I am writing now. In the beginning I thought this blog would be a serious installment of my academic thinking. At least I thought my blog would inspire research into (and about) Transhumanism. Now I understand that this is a blog for me first and for you (who I still believe are out there) second.

And that’s not bad. In fact, that’s just the honesty a project like this needs.

Right now I am sitting and writing this in bed. Next to me is my wife and my 3 year old daughter. She has trouble sleeping tonight and I’m waiting for her to calm down so that I can piece together my talk for the Sociology Day. There was a rescheduling and my talk is on Thursday. No worries, I have it covered.

The Annual Sociology Days in Turku begin on Thursday and I’ll post a report on the whole ordeal later this week.

Analysis

What to do with this blog? I hardly have time to write anything anything, not to mention anything of any value. Then again, this is basically written for myself as a document etc. on my PhD project. So, I’ll try to do just that in the future.

Right now I am preparing to give a small talk at the annual Sociology Days in Turku, Finland. My workshop group is focused on the sociology of knowledge and I’ll be talking about how I see Touraines analysis of social movements in connection with science and technology. I’ll post the damn thing here in English once it’s done.

Meanwhile I have gathered a good collection of books and other readings. For instance, yesterday I found Robert C Bannister’s Sociology and Scientism – the American Quest for Objectivity, 1880-1940. I’m also enjoying Ruth Schwartz Cowan’s A Social History of American Technology, and the superb Thomas Kuhn – A Philosophical History for Our Times by Steve Fuller.

This Fuller chap I’m going to keep my eye on. After reading Humanity 2.0 and (his PhD) Social Epistemology (see, wiki and Journal founded by Fuller) I was deeply convinced.

My own research is now going in a simple straight line. I’m deep inside data analysis and familiarizing myself with 19th century thinking on science and technology. I’ll blog about the talk at the sociology day later this month on some initial ideas and results.

Hot & new consumer electronics are here – highway to the future or a technocultural dystopia unfolding?

Today is The Big Day for Nokia. In a few hours the the company is going to launch it’s latest Windows phone that is rumored to host the new Windows 8 OS. Later next week it’s the same with Apple and the new iPhone. The modern internet with it’s unimaginable power to transmit information boosts these two events to planetary proportions. Will Nokia finally be able to break (back) into the lead with the new phone or is the hype going to melt down with the – so far – superior Apple.

This must be what the singularity feels like but is this what it is supposed to be? I mean, virtually lining behind large companies in their attempt to dominate the market. The market? Do you mean the financial market? You know, the system behind the world scale economic disaster looming in the horizon?

I was a young man in the 90’s. Back then there were was a fast awakening to the ecological disaster facing the world. Researchers argued – and still do – that the economic boom of the 20th century is culminating in a fast depletion of natural resources. People around the world became aware of the fact that the lifestyle we enjoy does have a double edge. In the past two decades nothing much has happened to correct this “cycle of doom”.

Now we are in a situation where most of the planet is affected by how “people receive” their new mobile devices. Will the stock go up or down. It’s not long ago that Nokia and Apple both had to answer some odd questions about how, where and by whom their devices were manufactured. It turned out, that there were some mistakes made. And remember when Apple announced it would with draw from EPEAT? After a world wide protest they decided that it’s better not to.

At the start of the 21st century some of you may have noticed a modest rise of the “new consumer culture“. What this means is that people are not just buying stuff they want (like the theory of consumerism has been thus far) but people would be eager to invest in things that are ecologically and socially sustainable. This is a part of the “green revolution” and frankly, I am surprised that it still remains a very small part of the combined marketing economy that keeps our world going (faster, closer and more mobile).

I have absolutely nothing against such products like Lumia or the iPhone. Not at all. I could not imagine living with out one. Mobile devices along with other innovations of the 21st century makes my life better, easier and perhaps fuller.

And the very same things I slightly criticize here are the things I can use to look up stuff like sustainable economy or consumer movements such as “Buy Nothing Day“.

And it is after doing some thinking of my own, I have decided that the way we are “hyped about the future” may well be the thing that prevents us getting there. From a Transhuman standpoint it’s easy to see why. It’s not just the fastness of development or the availability of new products that push the world forward. Those things push the economy forward and all though that is needed to keep pushing towards a more techno-oriented society, culturally, it’s not enough.

The Transhumanist in me is seeking to find the right technologies to push forward. Deciding what is right goes deep into the basics of being human (and especially Transhuman). I’m not a big fan of “nature before everything” since I have a deeply antrophocentric world view. That said, I believe we need to look at the big picture here.

And the picture states the obvious. We can’t expect to enrich our lives with depleted meanings. Even that the technology offered here is state of the art, we should ask for more. Do we really need a new cell phone or an iPad every year? By asking more we are asking not only more sustainable technological progress but a deeper and richer content as well. You may or may not know that the bloody competition in the high end technology market puts the consumer “needs” before everything else. Where is the innovation in that? Why would any company – even super rich Apple – invest billions in research and development if what they really “need” to do is keep up with competition?

We should build less and slower. At the same time we should look at what the gadgets actually offer from a cultural and social perspective. This is totally against the ideology of the “free market” since it’s said that the free market is all we need to get the best products and practices. But is this true in a situation where best ideas are nothing but market projections for a certain market segment?

If we find our selves asking who to make the markets “smarter”, we may then wake up to the fact that there still are people on the planet who can’t read or write. Or who have trouble getting food and fresh water. The planetary infrastructure of social well being is undermined all the time, not to mention that the nature around us is dying and taking us with it. This must be something for Transhumanist’s to think about and in my understanding they are. This could also be a message what would make Transhumanism even a more interesting world view among the peoples of the world. It just needs good packaging.

No singularity worth the effort is going to happen unless we take care of the present first. We are loosing massive human resources due to poverty and we are loosing the battle to master nature – because we are continually at risk of being extinct because we are still very much dependent on the natural environment.

Despite this I’ll be rooting for Nokia this week. It’s still a Finnish company in name at least. I’ll also be dreaming about technological progress that would actually benefit humanity and pave the way for a better, happier and richer future.

Even if caloric restriction is not connected to longevity, you should still keep at it

It’s one of the the greatest success stories in nutrition science. Caloric restriction is a much studied phenomenon that is said to lead to longevity and good health. This has been tested time and time again in mice and other creatures. Caloric restriction, or CR, was known even in the medieval times when people thought it could kill tumors. Modern science was aware of it in the 19th century and the modern CR research was institutionalized in the 1960’s. The boom of the “Longevity Diet” began in 2004 when the researchers at Washington universtity at St. Louis confirmed in a long term study on mice, that caloric restriction does indeed increase health and lifespan. The mechanism of why this is, was not discovered.

Up to today, we were all amazed. Now, after the latest research report in Nature, it seems we are back at square one, exactly where the legendary Gilgamesh left us three thousand years since. Well, it’s worth noting that the latest research is still to be debated within the science community and the new findings offer loads of questions about the mechanisms of aging.

Longevity and (radical) life extension is an integral part of the Transhuman worldview. In the 21st century especially such figures like Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurtzweil have been the prominent proponents of life extension. As modern medicine pushes the barriers of molecular and DNA research even further, life extension or even relative immortality seems to be looming just behind the horizon. However, the effects of caloric restriction has been the only confirmed way to keep the body in good shape in comparison to a non-CR diet. Even the well known BBC Horizon series produced an hour long documentary about the topic.

The argument for CR for the past decades has been this: if the body receives 10-40 percent less calories than is required, it will remain in good health for a longer period of time. Research conducted on mice and primates seems to give strong backing to the speculation that it applies to humans as well. So far long term research on humans has not been possible, since such research projects have been around only for a few decades – and the human quinea pigs are still thriving.

However, the new findings from a 25 year experiment with rhesus monkeys that were fed 30 percent less calories than the control group seems to cast doubts on the caloric restriction basic premise. The indication is, that the “eat lesser calories” does not switch the body to a longevity mode but the key factors in longevity would be more about the genes and the quality of calories consumed. And if you read this carefully, it implies only that the amount of calories consumed does not correlate with longevity. What the research seems to imply is that caloric restriction is connected with longevity on a less utopian way: if you have a high quality diet with little or no “bad substances”, you will lose weight and you don’t put too much strain on your body.

Good news for those who are on CR and for those who are not. It would, in my opinion as a layman, justify two things. First, people who are not on a CR regime could benefit much for having a CR-type diet, and that could be much easier to accomplish than a rigorous CR program. Second, people on a severe CR program, such as eating only 60 percent of the calories needed, can now shift to a more modest CR and begin consuming 80 or even 100 percent the calories needed. The key point in the research seems to be that what you eat affects your health.

Sounds trivial doesn’t it?

Well, it is. If you look up your national eating recommendations, you will likely get similar instructions. We all know what eating healthy means and I am not in a position to give any advice.

Now, the challenge that this research poses is mostly about genes. If your genetic makeup is a major player in your expected lifespan, you should try to even the odds with good nutrition and at least modest exercise. There really is no reason what so ever to allow your body to deteriorate because of fatty foods and sugery substances. Laissez faire eating means you are letting go of your self control and your life. If you are one of the lucky ones who come from a family saturated with 100 year old’s there is even a greater incentive for a healthier diet. Wouldn’t it be great to live for a century and remain in relative health?

Those extra decades also increase your change of being able to use future medical technologies to combat aging and increase well being even beyond that 100 year marker. This is of course highly speculative but looking at the medical progress we as a humanity have had in the past 100 years, it would seem like a safe bet.

By getting your self in shape and being aware of all the possibilities in life, there are many more pressing matters on earth you should focus on. Between healthy lunches you could try to figure out who our species is going to survive with nature going down the drain and increasing economic instability is threatening the very institutions our society (and medical science) is grounded on. By adopting a healthy and life centered worldview, you are more likely to be an answer to the collective problems we face every day. Now, if you really are in this for the long haul, you might consider getting in step with life and humanity by joining a new movement. Here is the Facebook group for the International Longevity Party. Join. Do it now. We need people just like you – and your friends too.

What exactly am I struggling with?

It seems I just needed a brake. There were several things in my life I needed to get done and leave behind before I could really focus on my research and my work. Yesterday I took all of my materials and went through them very carefully. Happily I realized that most of the difficult stuff is done and now it’s just about writing the thing. When I started out with an initial question like “has transhumanism created new social relations”, I really had only a hunch on what I was going to do.

What are social relations, I asked myself first. Since I have been studying Touraine, I had an general understanding of what I was going to do. Touraine understands social relations within society as a key part of subjective positions between “classes”. By classes he means the ruling class and the popular classes. All though Touraine emerged from a Marxist tradition of European (on precisely French) sociology, he quickly parted form that (and from the Communist party as well).

With class Touraine refers to “people” who are in control and the other “people” who are subjugated by this system. In Touraines system there are three components to a society understood as social relations: the state apparatus, the elite (ruling class) and the pupular classes (the subjugated). For Touraine the State is like a structure that delegates power and therefore the controlling of “the state” is important in order to control society.

That needs some explaining. For Touraine world history is a history of struggle between historical actors. Historical actors are in sense “true actors”. It takes a bit more than just a strike by the local factory or a street protest. A historical actor is only a true actor, if it can define it’s goals in the context of the whole of society. (As a separate note, I think this is what Touraine means when he speaks of ‘totality’). The understanding of the whole of society means that the tension between the elite and the popular classes have a context in the “culture” of society.

A historical actor understands the cultural orientations of society and therefore he or she is able to focus the struggle against the elite. A subjugated person is not aware of the “whole” and therefore is only a reactionary. Say, there is a strike at the local factory where the workers “attack” the bosses at the company, when the real problem is actually in a much wider system of slave capitalism. Note, that this example does not express my opinions about capitalism in the real world.

So, a historical actor that has the understanding of the “whole” can become a true social movement. Touraine claims that social movements are at the heart of society and they are the only driving force in history. The elite is just one “movement”, but Touraine is a bit confusing about that point.

Anyway, the social movement (like the workers movement Touraine researched himself) is struggling to control a) the status quo of cultural relations and b) the state apparatus c) history.

I am not going into detail with these, but Touraine generalizes this to any social movement. Here is where we finally come to Transhumanism.

If Transhumanism is a social movement, it should have some of the features Touraine gives to social movements. Well, I argue, that transhumanism is “struggling” to a) control the status quo understanding of science and technology, b) the “state” (political, institutional and economical element of S&T) and c) history. The history part here is a complicated one and the reader should get familiar with the way Touraine uses the word.

My first article is about arguing this. I am using the articles in the Journal of evolution and technology (JET) as my research data to see if the “meta-level” handling of the subject can be defined in Touraine’s terms. If so, then I suppose there is a strong argument about how Transhumanism (in the way JET articles can be read to define it) is in fact creating new kinds of social relations between people: between doctor and patient, between a politician and voter, etc.

And that would mean that it actually is propagating new cultural relations. Perhaps the debates in ethics and politics can be read as a manifestation of this “shift”.

The analysis I am going to use is all about analyzing how scientific knowledge is formed and how it is commonly understood. This is also called the Common Understanding of Science -problem.

Please take a minute to think about this

What do you think, are the following categories wise if I try to sort out my research data (a collection of written texts about transhumanism) with the following categories. This is not yet the analysis phase of the research, merely a way to categorize the material. I am trying to create some crude categories that help me to differentiate various ways of looking at human-technology relation in transhumanism.

1. Performative

– Technology has a function.

– Tools, enhancements, etc.

2. Cognitive

– Technology affects thinking and/or is somehow experienced by the subject

– Mental abilities, communication, spirituality

3. Esthetical

– Technology makes things “better”.

– Human perfection (body), rationality

4. Philosophical

– Technology defines categories

– Societal aims, things deemed good or bad.

 

The list has a lot of contradictions etc., but do you think it would be useful in finding very crude categories. After I get this going, I’ll start getting results. And of course, you will be the first to know 🙂

 

I may or may not be back

It’s not looking good. Not good at all. I have all the material I need for the article, I have read enough to get a handle of things but I lack the energy to go forward. What could help me? A personal coach? Nicotine+coffeine combo. Drugs in general. Positive thinking… what? I tried resting since I had a five week holiday that just ended on Monday. Perhaps it’s time management, that I need. Tried that, failed. The question on my head now is, if this is lack of motivation, what is the source? I’d truly like to be working on the PhD and stuff, but I seem to be having everything else on my hands.
I have a strange fear of failing that I can’t seem to be able to shake off. Every time I try to create a finished draft (?!) of my article, I get tired and angry. I have a lot of writing on my hands, a Start up and several other projects that really interest me. So, should I skip this PhD and start concentrating on something else?
Well?
Hell no.
In the past, it has always been Motörhead (the band) that has given me inspiration – for good and bad – but now even that doesn’t seem to fit my mental state. The one thing Lemmy Kilmister once said in an interview keeps running in my head. He said, “Why is Motörhead where it is right now? Well, we just kept going”. I try to tell myself that by just keeping a up the thing things will start happening.
Sure, I did write a piece a while ago for IEET and sure, I do get a lot of encouragement from the people near me. It’s just that I feel the project as a burden in stead of a source of inspiration.
I can’t really stop now but it feels as if I am doing all the wrong things.
Tell you what. I’ll give it a go once again and try to have something done. Doing academic research is not like running or any other BS analogies people (who can do it) keep telling me.
I’m back or not. Let’s see.