Is there a paradox at all? Should we be suprised? CHATters of all people
should be aware of the way a mediation system is plastic. This is not
forcing one into technological determinsim or an anti-materilist stance,
On grand scales the technologies which made Randolph Hurst his millions
was also leading Lenin to a strategy of democratic centralism.
It is clear that to make systems work needs work (or political struggle).
Some technological advances have unforseen effects. When Orville and
WIlbur took off, the fact that some centuary later I, a northern
European, would have fresh asparagus on my dinner table in January. Such
is the seamless web of technology and society... it seeps into life in so
many ways.
Most of the affordances engineered into the internet at the moment seem to
be driven by the need for commodity exchange. This is as true in its
educational developments as any other. The use of the interent is being
developed for a Fordist educational future. Courses and higher education
teaching developed by production teams for mass audiences. (In the UK the
National Grid for Learning has similar aspirations for school education:
standardised treatment to produce a standardised product).
But of course it need not be this way. However it will require political
struggle (whose form is also changing). Some weeks ago we focussed on
Luddism. While Ned Ludd’s men were smashing looms in Nottingham, Robert
Owen was building New Lanarkshire: industrialism with workers’ control.
Both struggles failed... but as old soixante-huitards such as myslef
might say “la lutte continue”.
The internet is clearly emerging as a site (actually plural) of political
struggle... and this should be no suprise.... but we should take nothing
fro granted, nothing as a a priori.
Martin
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