#15

#15

A medium that is reproductive can take reality and reduplicate it meticulously, the way that virtual reality is pushing us deeper into hyperreality¹, a reality that collapses in on itself and brings the spectacle to an end. The tendency of reality to reproduce from one medium to another is the reproduction of the medium into the message. This tendency towards hyperreality was inaugrated by realism. “Realism seeks essential or scientific correspondence with physical reality.”² Reality and its representation is fundamentally linked to the imitation of the ideal. Appropriation, reproduction, simulacra, and simulation all comprise the 'new realism'.

Paul Harvey writes to us from 1976, to quote the then-Republican Party politician George Romney who described the American “economic system as neither capitalism nor socialism – but 'consumerism.'”³ Citizen Harvey goes on to say that the industrialist and former Interior Secretary Wally Hickel redefined the American political preference as “neither liberalism nor conservatism – but 'realism.'”⁴

Citizen Harvey cites Hickel as saying that down through the twentieth century the American political system has been swinging like a pendulum, from left to right and back again. Citizen Harvey demystifies any reality of there being a post-McCarthy era hidden Communist lurking underneath every American bed or that the U.S. Economy is somehow isolated from the rest of the world. Rather, for Citizen Harvey, the realism is in the enlightened selfishness of capitalism. And in this light, Citizen Harvey quotes Hickel as saying that “the wave of the future is realism.”⁵

Citizen Harvey stresses that this does not mean that the government should take care of everybody whilst nobody is left to take care of the government. “In trying to do everything for everyone,” writes Citizen Harvey, we almost destroy the system of capitalism.⁶ And nobody'll do that any day will they? Even so, as a caution Citizen Harvey warns that a minority can litigate and legislate away the citizen's own freedom, a freedom that is inherent within capitalism. So, it would appear that some amount of realism is needed to bridge the gap between capitalism and socialism and keep in check a rampant consumerism. Citizen Harvey's article also raises the question as to whether we should prioritize unemployment ahead of concerns about the environment.

From the epoch of Citizen Harvey, there might be something to be said about the myth of scarcity. “{An oil} driller dares not plan a $10 million investment when he doesn't know whether the price is going to be 52 cents or $2.”⁷ Prices have to have a high fixivity according to the myth of scarcity for any real capitalist to make any serious money. Meanwhile Citizen Harvey reports that economists protest the economy for its increasing complexity. Yet, “{i}n reality, economics is as simple as this,” Citizen Harvey tells us, that, “{t}here is no wealth without production. The way to stop inflation is to increase production.”⁸ The rubric of consumerism: once again exploiting the proletarian. It bears repeating: the proletarian must be abolished. Surplus-value can be proportionate to an increase in wages. Citizen Harvey tells us: “{t}he cost of electricity will go down when there is more than enough electricity. The prices of houses will go down when there are more houses than buyers. That is realism.”⁹

1See Chapter 2 for the definition of 'hyperreality'. Basically, it means the simulation of reality.

2Jones, B. (1989) “Computer Imagery: Imitation and Representation of Realities.” Leonardo. Supplemental Issue, Vol. 2; p.32.

3Harvey, P. (1976) “It's Time For Realism.” Ocala Star-Banner, Sep. 26.

4Ibid.

5Ibid.

6Ibid.

7Ibid.

8Ibid.

9Ibid.

©Elijah Nathaniel James

#11

#11

Both from within each nation and also internationally, fundamental unity reflects the actuality of Kapitalismo-sozjietie. The task of the spectacle is the division of what is global, or total. Its role is to allot these divisions as specializations between the extremities of Kapital whose overall function is the control of communication by means of supervision – a sort of digital panopticon – rendering the social totality to be a specialized totalitarian unity.

Production processes in urban conditions bring together the proletarian class within an atomized population. Control of an atomized population is maintained via a method of sprawling isolation and separation of mass communication to create a one way system of overall supervision. Consumption and production is planned based on the needs of the proletarian class – the sprawling digital morass – and their reintegration into the controlled system of supervision.

A neopeasantry, digitally, artificial in its virtual reality, has been created by this planned environment of consumption and production – the snake eating its own tail – this environment of control created by the conditions of spectacular habitation. A centralized bureaucratic tendency arises from the fragmentation inherent in the foundations of this peasantry of virtual reality. Historical time represses the expression of this peasantry, who, in their totality, technologically, find their habitation in the landscape of the new city.

The overall activity of interconnectivity reveals the tendency of the social totality to move towards a fragmented dynamic hegemony; information communications technology such as Google and Facebook are instrumental in overseeing the social unity of Kapitalismo-sozjietie. We witness a dispersion of activity due to a widespread use of information communications technology.

The planned environment of consumption and production forms part of the comprehensive ideal of the urban space's constitution. The urban space's fragmentation reflects the market's segmentation. “{T}oday the regulation of access to the Internet is increasingly governed by the workings of market forces and is de facto reserved for certain social groups{.}”¹

The urban space becomes splintered by information communications technology whereas social groups tend to coalesce because of it; markets form and arise from the cultures of social groups. Social groups are no longer fixed by urban spaces but remain connected whilst on-the-move, synchronized by their mobile digital devices. The development of urban spaces takes on an unintentional, market-driven logic, moving its sphere of control to private authorities – the memetic content of information communications technologies – from public authorities which no longer control or develop the character of the franchized urban area in the same way that they once might have done.²

Whether integration or segregation contribute to the social formation, the movement of social change now relies on the technological development of spatial organization and the phenomenon of urban fragmentation which fractures the spaces of the city and its overall composition.³

Citizen Anonymous writes to us from 1976 to foretell how the power that governs us seeks “jurisdiction over all forms of communication,” - in that case in particular the Quebec government's control of Bell Canada – and “a say in the policies of national networks.”⁴ Moves like these are not necessarily constitutional and there is a distinction between unity and uniformity.

Citizen Anonymous quotes Quebec's then-communications minister, Denis Hardy, as saying, “{t}he centralization of decision-making powers in the name of national unity constitutes without a doubt a very important factor of dissension and fragmentation.”⁵ So, with network technologies being the way that they are, unique and individual voices may arise but because of the nexus of centralization, the panopticon's dominion, they are kept in check, whether through monitoring or sedation by overexposure to information. The overexposure: simulation and simulacra - “information is directly destructive of meaning ... The loss of meaning is directly linked to the dissolving, dissuasive action of information{.}”⁶

Returning to The Phoenix newspaper, Hardy appears diplomatic in defence of the government when he says: “Quebec can only develop culturally by taking charge of communications within its territories.”⁷ So, from the vantage point of 1976 we can see the agencies of control spreading out over network technology to form its own hegemony. Whilst network technology gives social groups cohesive mobility it simultaneously allows the urban space to retain its cultural topography which makes for greater control. Google and Facebook – both products of the evolution of telecommunications – can be viewed as having, or at least sharing, federal jurisdiction. Bringing populations under federal jurisdiction brings together unity and the economic, socio-cultural reality.

1Fernandez, V. & Puel, G. (2012) “Socio-technical Systems, Public Space and Urban Fragmentation.” Urban Studies, Vol. 49, No. 6; p.1298.

2Ibid.

3Ibid.

4Citizen Anonymous² (1976) “Quebec Reveals Wants in Communications.” The Phoenix, Mar. 26.

5Ibid.

6Baudrillard, J. (1994) Simulacra & Simulation. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press; p.79.

7Citizen Anonymous², Op. Cit.

©Elijah Nathaniel James

#5

#5

The praxis of the transition to socialism has the apporpriate form of assuming the terrain of the historical, it does not abandon the praxis of ideas that recognize the historical subject of the proletariat. “{T}he crucial character of the transition to socialism is not that it is a change in the economic base but that it is a revolutionary change in the relation of base to superstructure.”¹

Charles R. Smith, writing to us from 1974, explains the nature of this superstructure, that it is the “socialist ... {l}iterature and art ... which serves {the economic} base{.}”² State communism in China, from the time when Citizen Smith writes, had the bureaucratic agency, the New China News Agency, to mediate its spectacle's transmission. Where state communism is primarily concerned with propaganda versus censorship, Kapitalismo-sozjietie is concerned with the mediation of consumption. 'This is what you shouldn't consume,' says the spectacle of mediation in its red beret, whilst, 'this is what you shall consume,' says the spectacle of mediation in its blue necktie.

Citizen Smith tells us: “the People's Daily and Red Flag Magazine, the party's theoretical journal ... {led a} criticism campaign against the ancient sage Confucius,” proving that the censorship of art in the communist state of China had reached the same proportions as Plato's republic. The question of art toeing the party line was raised by Chu Lan, “believed to be the pseudonym of an important party official ... with particular emphasis on who should be portrayed as heroes.” What is feared by these iconoclasts? It is the “omnipotence of simulacra ... and the destructive, annihilating truth that they allow to appear – from this came their urge to destroy the images.”³ Chairman Mao replaces Confucius in the temple for the sole purpose of changing the canon.

Citizen Smith reports Chu Lan as saying that the literature and art of state communism, which form part of the superstructure of state communism, are not in harmony with the socialist economic base they serve. Could the same be said for Kapitalismo-sozjietie? What is its harmony? T.V. Tele-visual, talking virtually. Division and separation, universally. Universally: digitally.

1MacIntyre, cited in Blackledge, P. (2005) “Freedom, Desire and Revolution.” History of Political Thought, Vol. 26, No. 4; p.704.

2Smith, C. R. (1974) “Chinese Art Doesn't Toe The Party Line.” Ludington Daily News, Sep. 17.

3Baudrillard, J. (1994) Simulacra & Simulation. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press; p.4.

©Elijah Nathaniel James.