Thursday 4 October 2007
Monday 24 September 2007
Interruptus III: Fast culture
(Translation note: The original Spanish tittle is a word game with "deprisa" (fast) and "de Prisa" (of Prisa) - "Fast culture" and "Culture of Prisa". Prisa is a huge mass media company in Spain, holding most of the mass media and editorials in the country. Its recently deceased owner (Jesús Polanco) is our particular, real and terrible version of citizen Kane).
" The writer who triumphs during a period is a man who sympathizes with the dominant classes of such period, which interests he defends and which goals he interprets, being identified with them".
Upton Sinclair
I took this quote from the book by Manuel García Viñó "El País: la cultura como negocio" (El País: the culture as a business). It is the prelude to the third and last part of the book.
In a society where everything is mercantilized, not even culture is safe of it. I remember that a long time ago (when I was adolescent) I left hearing the top’s radio programmes because the music played there didn’t satisfied me. And I discovered that there was music beyond such programmes. Music with which I felt fully identified, and other music with which not a lot. But with a great variety of genres and with a diversity, that I was shocked. But the shock quickly became fascination. There were many artist and musicians that never appeared, nor will appear, in the top ten lists. But it was the music what made me fell full. Completely different to the mediocrity I had heard until that moment.
Today, the same is happening with the books. The last remaining cultural shelter, cornered by the trash TV and top ten radios, has become merchandise in a fight to get a best seller and appear in the top ten books list. It is a long time ago since I discovered I didn’t fell identified with such “literature”. With those books which, despite being carefully bound and having an excellent cover, were empty inside, like the politicians speeches. Most of the best sellers are ephymeral, like their content. They are books to read just once, and be forgotten in the search of the next one in the fast changeling top list. Sometimes I want simple relax and read one of these books, usually because someone borrowed it to me or I downloaded it from internet. But they are books who leave no mark on me. It is like going to the cinema to see a Hollywood film. Just to have some unbrained fun, that’s all. But every time I see less books of the kind that allow you to read several times, to take notes, quotes, books that invite you to think, and overall, books that stir you from the armchair instead of leave you dopey.
Gutemberg’s invention is under the risk of perishing as a victim of its own success, and becoming just an instrument for the transmission of the unitary (or monolithic) thought and no-thinking. We don’t need to burn the chivalry books (translation note: this is a reference to “Don Quixote”), but we should get the option to insert other kind of books sometimes. The kind of books that you will leave to your sons when their interest about the world awakes.
Fortunately, we have a new substitute for the printing press, which has provoked controversy in a similar way to the gutembergian machine during its time. We can still find alternatives in Internet. There are still cultural shelters growing through the web. I don’t know how long will this last, but we must to seize it and learn as much as we can before the enemies of diversity and plurality sink their teeth into it. And they eat it.
In a society where everything is mercantilized, not even culture is safe of it. I remember that a long time ago (when I was adolescent) I left hearing the top’s radio programmes because the music played there didn’t satisfied me. And I discovered that there was music beyond such programmes. Music with which I felt fully identified, and other music with which not a lot. But with a great variety of genres and with a diversity, that I was shocked. But the shock quickly became fascination. There were many artist and musicians that never appeared, nor will appear, in the top ten lists. But it was the music what made me fell full. Completely different to the mediocrity I had heard until that moment.
Today, the same is happening with the books. The last remaining cultural shelter, cornered by the trash TV and top ten radios, has become merchandise in a fight to get a best seller and appear in the top ten books list. It is a long time ago since I discovered I didn’t fell identified with such “literature”. With those books which, despite being carefully bound and having an excellent cover, were empty inside, like the politicians speeches. Most of the best sellers are ephymeral, like their content. They are books to read just once, and be forgotten in the search of the next one in the fast changeling top list. Sometimes I want simple relax and read one of these books, usually because someone borrowed it to me or I downloaded it from internet. But they are books who leave no mark on me. It is like going to the cinema to see a Hollywood film. Just to have some unbrained fun, that’s all. But every time I see less books of the kind that allow you to read several times, to take notes, quotes, books that invite you to think, and overall, books that stir you from the armchair instead of leave you dopey.
Gutemberg’s invention is under the risk of perishing as a victim of its own success, and becoming just an instrument for the transmission of the unitary (or monolithic) thought and no-thinking. We don’t need to burn the chivalry books (translation note: this is a reference to “Don Quixote”), but we should get the option to insert other kind of books sometimes. The kind of books that you will leave to your sons when their interest about the world awakes.
Fortunately, we have a new substitute for the printing press, which has provoked controversy in a similar way to the gutembergian machine during its time. We can still find alternatives in Internet. There are still cultural shelters growing through the web. I don’t know how long will this last, but we must to seize it and learn as much as we can before the enemies of diversity and plurality sink their teeth into it. And they eat it.
Thursday 20 September 2007
Interruptus II: The king of the fried chicken
I have just finding out that our "celebrated" Ramoncín, champion and paladin of the $GAE, has just obtained a condemnatory judgment against Alasbarricadas.org. Let's hope that it is only the first assault, as it appears in Microsiervos, Caspa.tv, David Bravo and the proper Alasbarricadas.org. Because the question is serious: the owner of the web is condemned by a post who wrote another person with a few commentaries about Ramoncín. The judgment is based that the contents of the post were illicit and they were not withdrawn at the moment by the owner of the web. But to determine that a few contents are illicit, it is necessary that a judge passes it. How are they going to withdraw then a few contents if still it has not been decided on its legality?
I say that the question is serious because it is another stone thrown on the pressure for controlling the Internet contents. According to this judgment, they can close a media (in this case a web page) for what there has written a foreign person. If this judgment is kept, it can take us to that the owners of every web will have now to control and censure everything that is published in Internet (blogs, forums, etc.) to prevent them from being denounced. Though thinking cautiously, this might be useful, since according to the same reasoning they should denounce any radio station, for example, for the commentaries spilt during the emission by listeners when there is possibility of intervening through telephonic calls. Probably we should start calling some radio programmes and to insult someone (Ramoncín?) in order that they demand them, shouldn't?
Another sample of the lack of judicial independence.
I say that the question is serious because it is another stone thrown on the pressure for controlling the Internet contents. According to this judgment, they can close a media (in this case a web page) for what there has written a foreign person. If this judgment is kept, it can take us to that the owners of every web will have now to control and censure everything that is published in Internet (blogs, forums, etc.) to prevent them from being denounced. Though thinking cautiously, this might be useful, since according to the same reasoning they should denounce any radio station, for example, for the commentaries spilt during the emission by listeners when there is possibility of intervening through telephonic calls. Probably we should start calling some radio programmes and to insult someone (Ramoncín?) in order that they demand them, shouldn't?
Another sample of the lack of judicial independence.
Sunday 16 September 2007
Interruptus I: Viruses of the mind
A small change. It isn’t easy to draw several comic strips during the week to upload, so I am going to introduce a modification: I will insert text entries with the strips and vice versa. I’ll try to leave the comic strips for the same topics, and with the text entries I’ll include other subjects, beginning with this one about viruses of the mind.
A few time ago I took up again my curiosity about memetic and all those things related to memes. So, in addition to buy a good book about the topic, I was searching and reading through the web. And I found, amongst other things, with an amazing paper by Richard Dawkins (el del The Selfish Gene), what gives the tittle to the present entry: "Viruses of the mind". It is not a recent work, dating from 1991, but I was surprised about its relevance. The main idea is that, similarly to what happens with genes and living organisms, our brain acts as a machine for the transmission of memes, like computers, books and any other device for storing and transmitting information do. But again, as it is the case with computers, not all the transmitted and/or stored information is useful for the receptacle (our brain). Sometimes such information could even be harmful. Like a computer virus.
Through the paper, Dawkins makes comparisons and give examples about all these things. And he explains how these viruses of the mind can be studied using epidemiology. But what I’ve found really interesting is how Dawkins develops a hypothetical medical text describing the symptoms of a person infected by viruses of the mind:
1. The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as ”faith”.
[...]
2. Patients typically make a positive virtue of faith's being strong and unshakable, in spite of not being based upon evidence. Indeed, they may feel that the less evidence there is, the more virtuous the belief.
[...]
3. A related symptom, which a faith-sufferer may also present, is the conviction that "mystery", per se, is a good thing. It is not a virtue to solve mysteries. Rather we should enjoy them, even revel in their insolubility.
[...]
4. The sufferer may find himself behaving intolerantly towards vectors of rival faiths, in extreme cases even killing them or advocating their deaths. He may be similarly violent in his disposition towards apostates (people who once held the faith but have renounced it); or towards heretics (people who espouse a different - often, perhaps significantly, only very slightly different - version of the faith). He may also feel hostile towards other modes of thought that are potentially inimical to his faith, such as the method of scientific reason which may function rather like a piece of anti-viral software.
[...]
5. The patient may notice that the particular convictions that he holds, while having nothing to do with evidence, do seem to owe a great deal to epidemiology. Why, he may wonder, do I hold this set of convictions rather than that set? Is it because I surveyed all the world's faiths and chose the one whose claims seemed most convincing? Almost certainly not. If you have a faith, it is statistically overwhelmingly likely that it is the same faith as your parents and grandparents had. [...]Epidemiology, not evidence.
6. If the patient is one of the rare exceptions who follows a different religion from his parents, the explanation may still be epidemiological. To be sure, it is possible that he dispassionately surveyed the world's faiths and chose the most convincing one. But it is statistically more probable that he has been exposed to a particularly potent infective agent - a John Wesley, a Jim Jones or a St. Paul. Here we are talking about horizontal transmission, as in measles. [...]
7. The internal sensations of the patient may be startlingly reminiscent of those more ordinarily associated with sexual love. This is an extremely potent force in the brain, and it is not surprising that some viruses have evolved to exploit it. St. Teresa of Avila's famously orgasmic vision is too notorious to need quoting again. [...]
And now, I leave you to thoroughly examine your surrounding brains in the search of a healthy one...
A few time ago I took up again my curiosity about memetic and all those things related to memes. So, in addition to buy a good book about the topic, I was searching and reading through the web. And I found, amongst other things, with an amazing paper by Richard Dawkins (el del The Selfish Gene), what gives the tittle to the present entry: "Viruses of the mind". It is not a recent work, dating from 1991, but I was surprised about its relevance. The main idea is that, similarly to what happens with genes and living organisms, our brain acts as a machine for the transmission of memes, like computers, books and any other device for storing and transmitting information do. But again, as it is the case with computers, not all the transmitted and/or stored information is useful for the receptacle (our brain). Sometimes such information could even be harmful. Like a computer virus.
Through the paper, Dawkins makes comparisons and give examples about all these things. And he explains how these viruses of the mind can be studied using epidemiology. But what I’ve found really interesting is how Dawkins develops a hypothetical medical text describing the symptoms of a person infected by viruses of the mind:
1. The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as ”faith”.
[...]
2. Patients typically make a positive virtue of faith's being strong and unshakable, in spite of not being based upon evidence. Indeed, they may feel that the less evidence there is, the more virtuous the belief.
[...]
3. A related symptom, which a faith-sufferer may also present, is the conviction that "mystery", per se, is a good thing. It is not a virtue to solve mysteries. Rather we should enjoy them, even revel in their insolubility.
[...]
4. The sufferer may find himself behaving intolerantly towards vectors of rival faiths, in extreme cases even killing them or advocating their deaths. He may be similarly violent in his disposition towards apostates (people who once held the faith but have renounced it); or towards heretics (people who espouse a different - often, perhaps significantly, only very slightly different - version of the faith). He may also feel hostile towards other modes of thought that are potentially inimical to his faith, such as the method of scientific reason which may function rather like a piece of anti-viral software.
[...]
5. The patient may notice that the particular convictions that he holds, while having nothing to do with evidence, do seem to owe a great deal to epidemiology. Why, he may wonder, do I hold this set of convictions rather than that set? Is it because I surveyed all the world's faiths and chose the one whose claims seemed most convincing? Almost certainly not. If you have a faith, it is statistically overwhelmingly likely that it is the same faith as your parents and grandparents had. [...]Epidemiology, not evidence.
6. If the patient is one of the rare exceptions who follows a different religion from his parents, the explanation may still be epidemiological. To be sure, it is possible that he dispassionately surveyed the world's faiths and chose the most convincing one. But it is statistically more probable that he has been exposed to a particularly potent infective agent - a John Wesley, a Jim Jones or a St. Paul. Here we are talking about horizontal transmission, as in measles. [...]
7. The internal sensations of the patient may be startlingly reminiscent of those more ordinarily associated with sexual love. This is an extremely potent force in the brain, and it is not surprising that some viruses have evolved to exploit it. St. Teresa of Avila's famously orgasmic vision is too notorious to need quoting again. [...]
And now, I leave you to thoroughly examine your surrounding brains in the search of a healthy one...
Wednesday 12 September 2007
Sunday 9 September 2007
Thursday 6 September 2007
Tuesday 4 September 2007
Saturday 1 September 2007
Thursday 30 August 2007
Tuesday 28 August 2007
Monday 27 August 2007
Saturday 25 August 2007
Memebreaker: The beginning
Here I am. If some years ago anybody were told me that the first site I would open in the web would be this one, I would not trust him/her. I have many interest and topics that I like and know about, much better that the one mainly treated in this blog. But the things went in this way, and it could be a good beginning (or a good end) for my experience in internet. The main reason to begin this is because I found it necessary. Only the time and the results will probe it, but it does not depend entirely on me. It depends also on all of you, despite the main responsability is on my back.
OK, too much words, so let's go in. The main objective of this blog will be the publication of series of comic strips which I will develop periodically. I have no great expectations about them, and I do not think that you will laugh your head off. Even more, it is possible that sometimes I hardly will get a smile from you (remember: that is not my speciality). But I will try that such comic strips being didactic. At least as much didactic as possible for the complicate topics I will deal with. The comic strips will be dedicated to political sciences, mainly to explain the people from Spain why our political system is not a democracy, and why we need a change.
Respect the name of the blog, you only need to check the Wikipedia and search what a meme is, considering you still do not know. With it I want to point out that I will try to break some false memes, which usually is a hard work.
And without further ado, here is the first strip.
OK, too much words, so let's go in. The main objective of this blog will be the publication of series of comic strips which I will develop periodically. I have no great expectations about them, and I do not think that you will laugh your head off. Even more, it is possible that sometimes I hardly will get a smile from you (remember: that is not my speciality). But I will try that such comic strips being didactic. At least as much didactic as possible for the complicate topics I will deal with. The comic strips will be dedicated to political sciences, mainly to explain the people from Spain why our political system is not a democracy, and why we need a change.
Respect the name of the blog, you only need to check the Wikipedia and search what a meme is, considering you still do not know. With it I want to point out that I will try to break some false memes, which usually is a hard work.
And without further ado, here is the first strip.
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