Phil,
I agree with you that,
> At the moment, I would say *we* are the ecological disaster.
Of course talking about "ecological disasters" makes it sound as though
there is some objective process independent of the human species and its
tool mediated adaptation that has lead us to this situation. But isn't that
the contradiction? If its just us why can't we do something about it?
The only reason I brought up the market is to suggest its inability to
organize human activity in patterns that lead away from the disaster since
the frame of reference on which it operates (calculation of present
benefits) rarely exceeds one life time let alone 100+ year time scales.
.
I don't totally agree with your analysis of the access to non-hegemonic
voices on the internet however. There is a problem of confusing
quantitative access with qualitative representation. In particular, I was
thinking of broad-based political actions, such as the demonstrations
against WTO, that wide-scale access to the internet facilitated and that
would have been quite difficult, even unimaginable, without that access.
By globalization I was really thinking along the lines of the breaking-up of
Euro-american cultural hegemony to which Jay Lemke alludes in his
"Metamedia literacy" paper. The effects of this on "nationality" will
certainly be significant--the whole earth increasingly seen as the
integrated homeland of diverse peoples. (yes, I know, utopian day-dreaming)
And although I agree that the coordination is increased for all, and more
for those who are currently dominant, the increase in coordinative ability
for those non-dominant voices might be more important in the long run.
> All that said, I'd like to think that you were right.
Sigh. Yes, me too, chins up and all that.
Paul
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