KASSEL 2012_dOCUMENTA(13)

another article, another author, same source (Zeit Magazin Leben, no.52, 19dec07).

Peter Bieri is teaching philosophy at FU Berlin. he writes (and i translate freely):

* "language makes us beings capable of understanding. in a state of non-understanding, when we do not know words or sentences, we cannot identify the causal relationships of the world and are being pushed around at random. the learning of language fundamentally changes this: because we can react to the world with a system of symbols, we can understand it, we have a notion of it.

language provides us with a conceptual organization of experiencees. [...] it helps us to classify what we experience."

* "language is also quintessential for the understanding of the other. first of all your own language, in which we justify what we do, but then also the language of the other, through which we are approved or corrected. language is an expression of the strange other as well as a bridge to a foreign mind."

* "every action is an episode in someone's life and draws its sense and rationality from his/her history."

* "verbal articulation can form emotional certainty out of emotional chaos and something conscious out of the unconscious. memory, too, is shaped by language. of course, beings uncapable of language also have memory. [... but] the process of recollection forms the identity of one's mind."

* "there is a positive power of language. and there is a negative one. [...] when words coagulate to empty verbal shells and sentences become slogans they are no longer part of the logical framework of reasoning, criticism and revision but exhibit the [...] grim determination of fists pounding a table. [...] also the false language of diplomacy with its euphemisms and [...] gentle lies [...] aims is to suffocate critical inquiry and the need for better understanding. this kind of language aims to paralyze the spirit.

besides slogans there are other forms of language that prohibit understanding and education: empty phrases and something which one may call verbal rubble [...]. the usage of "verbal garbage" degrades conversation to ranting, blabbering and quacking. this kind of language does not encourage people to be alert and to strive for self-determination through adequate verbal articulation."

this is the title of an article published in "Die Zeit" no. 52, 19dec07. a certain Thomas Gross is talking to Geert Lovink, an internet theoretician, who heads the Institute of Network Cultures at the university of Amsterdam.

Lovink's most recent publication "zero comments" makes blogging "the killer application of our times". in this interview the author says a couple of interesting things (and i translate freely):

* "my understanding of blogging [...] is more like what Michel Foucault calls "technologies of the self". the main thing of today's net is not news and opinions but self-profiling and self-reflexion: who am i? what am i doing?"

* "[a blog] revolves around one's experience which is reflected in the confrontation with an already existent text, picture or video."

* "the blogosphere is certainly something lonely, reflexive. you exhibit yourself although you don't know to whom. blogging is a cult of individualism under antagonistic, anti-individualistic conditions, insofar it's the successor of the diary. it is a completely new diary culture which is neither public nor private, but exists in ambiguity."

* "the most popular blogs deal with cats. the worldwide most popular blog topic is cats. then come holiday destinations [...]. there is factual, heroic or desperate blogging. blogs undeniably carry aspects of self-advertisement, too. you can create your own profile. you can publish idealized pictures of yourself. but ultimately these pictures don't work on the net."

it seems that Lovink quotes Erich Fromm (freely translated): "the right to say what you want only carries weight if you are capable to translate your thoughts into words."
Lovink says:

* "my hope is that the technology that so profoundly changed the picture we have of ourselves and our concept of "the social" self might create a new social body. perhaps the fear of disappearing in the mass was characteristic of the 20th century but maybe the 21st century will show us new ways of organizing ourselves through technology, ways we only begin to understand. the question is: will we have the inner strength, the conviction to accept this challenge?"