The Writing on the Wall

I think just about every week Megan tells me that she is disappointed that I haven't posted anything new in several months. I tell her it's largely her fault because she moved in with me, and now I get to talk to her about my thoughts each night rather than post them on the interweb. Regardless, I suppose there may be a few of you who still have this blog saved in some RSS/blog program, so I've decided to repost a comment I made on the AAG LinkedIn page the other day, responding to a comment about the importance of Geography and it's steady decline in our universities. Don't worry that this is reposted out of context, there really wasn't much to take from the rest of the discussion.

"First, I have to agree with Rick Marshall. I truly believe geography and/or geographic concepts are now more prevalent in our everyday lives, however I would suggest that it is this prevalence that has made "geography" as a discipline less significant in the minds of the future generation. As a young professional Geographer I can tell you that one of the things that attracted me to this discipline was its ease of application to my life. I grew up with the internet so the significance of place (and the differences that are associated with different places) became apparent to me at an early age. I could see the world from the corner of my house. While this helped my understanding of spatial distribution at a young age, it also taught me that distance (and therefore space) was not a significant obstacle to exploration or understanding. Technology has made the world smaller, and more accessible, to the people who can access the network. While it may be interesting to discuss how technology has changed our perception of space and time, the problem may be that it has also taken away the significance of "place". The functional world is becoming digital. Whether I am in D.C. or Bangkok I can access the same virtual spaces, the same communication tools, the same information sources, and talk to the same people... and I can do this no matter where they are. As a result, some have suggested then that there is now a new, virtual geography for geographers to explore, but the problems/complexities of this new geography are no longer specialized. Since just about everyone in the developed world now interacts, to at least some degree, with this virtual environment, the problems which were originally left to the professional geographers are now being negotiated by all of its users. It's not a specialized discipline when everyone does it, and while I know this is not a new threat to the discipline it may become a more significant threat by the fact that technology is simultaneously making traditional geography less significant while also allowing users to create the new geography themselves in a virtual environment. There is no need to study geography as a formal academic discipline when the world it looks at is outdated, and the new virtual geography is known and understood at a very young age.

We are going to have to confront these problems if we wish to to continue as a formal, respected discipline, and to recruit a future generation of geographers to follow in our footsteps."

Let me follow-up by saying that I hope I am wrong about the direction my chosen discipline is heading, although I cannot deny what I am seeing this current wave of technology do to our culture. Although I think it is great that people have almost instant access to information to make informed decisions, I also cannot deny that it has had a negative affect on human attention spans, average memory response times, the social politics of (and psychological health associated with) human interaction, and the psychological and emotional stress that results from the lack of "instance gratification" in areas of our life not controlled by electronic stimulation. Moreover, our senses our being dulled because we only have one primary type of stimulation in our lives now, and that is electronic. Yes, we can see, explore, and interact with real world entities through the use of these electronics, however the direct physical and psychological interaction that we are experiencing is only with the electronic device and the soft glow of it's LCD touch screen. We are not digital entities. We are living, breathing, emotional entities that have evolved from a natural environment, not a virtual one, and all of our biological and chemical devices that have genetically evolved to give us a full life of diverse experiences are being truncated by our consumeristic desires to have more, and to have it faster. Perhaps we don't notice the change anymore because everyone is changing together, and it is changing at such a rate that a single generation cannot observe the effects that its technology had on them before a new technology takes over and no one can identify what tool had what impact on it's user group.

Before I venture too far down that road I should say that I am not against all technology. Many technologies have dramatically improved our lives by helping us maintain a clean, safe, and healthy environment. However, I do not buy into this idea of "progress" and that we are moving forward towards some inevitably technological utopia that is supposed to better the lives of all of its users. Technology is supposed to help us, and at a certain point I think the balance between help and hurt shifted, perhaps without our conscious understanding of what was going on. The use of technology should be a conscious decision, and these days I'm not sure that it is, at least not to the upcoming generation whose members are trying to identify the skills necessary to get a successful job so they to can pursue the American Dream. Even if we cannot reverse the impact that some of the existing technology has done to our society, I think we should at least be cognitively aware of the choices we are making when we blindly accept new technologies as "good". The adaptation of technology should be a conscious, informed decision. Perhaps it's the fact that no one seems to be having this discussion that concerns me most...

A Little Bit of Light Reading

These are not new theories so some of you may be familiar with some of them already, but here are two short articles about collective intelligence. If you have some free feel free to give them a read and then let me know what you think. Whatever you think... doesn't have to be some highly technical response. General impressions are just fine.

Using Games to Tap Collective Intelligence
http://www.edery.org/2006/09/using-games-to-tap-collective-intelligence/

Using Games to Tap Collective Intelligence (Part 2)
http://www.edery.org/2006/11/using-games-to-tap-collective-intelligence-part-2/

Also, if you have come across this stuff before and have any other good references to share, please let me know. Thanks!

More thoughts on this to come.

Okay, so I lied...

Okay, so I lied in the last post. I came across something worth thinking about before the end of the semester. I was killing time before my law class today and came across this article in the CSM analyzing the "new economy". Thoughts?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0412/p13s01-usec.html

The NYU Occupation

Since the eruption of the Greek Anarchist riots last fall, I have been following (as best I can given the restricted nature of the material, even within our nation of free speech) the increasing acts of protest that have been slowly building across the world. One of the closest has been the New School occupation in New York, which has been occurring since last fall as well. I have decided that these transgressions should be my next topic of discussion, however at this moment I only have enough time to post an e-mail I received this morning through one of the many listserv's I am a member of. I will give my comments on this later, but for now I just want to continue to spread these sentiments... not as my beliefs, but as an emerging movement that should at least be noticed:

Exiled in NYU: A communiqué from within the NYU occupation.
At the dawn of the New School occupation last December, we wrote, “This is only the beginning.”

We weren’t joking.

We are now occupying the halls of NYU alongside their students. With our bodies and barricades, we continue to manifest ourselves as a force of interruption against the enforced passivity of the university.

This occupation arises at a time of economic turmoil. The current crisis of capital is no fluke; it is the result of the real social conditions in which we live. NYU, one of the largest property owners in New York City, is a clear perpetrator of the misery everyone now feels. It has no alibi, only vulnerabilities.

From the insurrection in Greece to the revolts of Eastern Europe, from the university occupations across England to the general uprising in Oakland, something is in air. We can’t name it, but we can all feel it. Uncompromising, our power is growing. What has started as a singular strike against the structure of NYU’s form of domination will become a strike against the general logic of domination.

When we occupy spaces and liberate their use, we appropriate for ourselves the means of our very existence. We find each other here and now, in the midst of conflict and crisis, overturning every role we’re given, annulling every attempt to reconcile.

This is how we learn. This is how we fight.

In Exile,
Students of the New School
Feb 19th, 2009

"The Merchants of Cool"

So I have been notoriously hardnosed when it comes to controversial material, especially related to the darker material that often comes though my line of academic inquiry (for example, after watching a documentary on factory farming of chicken I was the only one to not turn vegetarian, at least for a short period of time. As a matter of fact, I went home that night and made chicken). However, I just watched a movie in class today that honestly made me sick to my stomach. It's not necessarily new material (the film was actually aired in 2001) and it concerned a topic that I have had many discussions about (media and the comodification of culture), but I think seeing the direct connection between the theory and the media that directly influenced my High School years, and ultimately who I was at that point in my life, really hit home. So I encourage anyone with an hour to sit down and work though this documentary called "The Merchants of Cool" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/) and then respond to this post with any feedback you might.

The film speaks for itself, but I did want to say that at about 50min into the documentary it discusses the relationship between media and the re-/production of society, and I could not help but remember what MTV was like when I was in High School and then compare it to the shit my brother watches on MTV now, and I can see a direct relationship between the type of people we were producing then and the type of people we are producing now (especially in the influential teen age range), and it really shouldn't be any wonder that our society is turning to cheep, comodified shit. I think the take home point here is a clear understanding of how much media influences the population and ultimately shapes the next generation... and that maybe we should look beyond the dollar sign and be a little more conscious with our social management (and let's be honest, the effect of the media on society is well understood and has been utilized continuously through marketing as a form of social management... its called Marketing and Advertising, and you can actually get a degree in it).

No Code For Old Men (a brief critique of fiscal zoning)

(I'm still sort of working on a much more elaborate critique of this but, at least for the purpose of the blog, I have moved on in my thought experiments and figured I should at least get up a short version while its still fresh in my mind... so here it is...)

So as I mentioned in the last post I was working on a very elaborate criticism of fiscal zoning and how, if expanded, it could effectively serve to eliminate local competition by protecting already established industry and preventing new business owners from being able to enter the market. In a very traditional economic sense, limiting the potential for competition would deter developers from creating new and better products since there would be no potential to make a profit from them (unless they sold them through already established retailers, in which the necessary markup required to provide both parties a profit would render the product unaffordable to the standard public). This completely undermines the fundamental aspect of capitalism. Moreover, even if developers are inspired to create new and better products, this regulation prevents new entrepreneurs from entering the markets that have been protected by fiscal zoning, which for some developers would be the market to which their product is best suited. Having multiple markets protected could effectively stagnate competition (at least within the regulated geographic/political area), and in turn remove a potential entrepreneurs right to try and better him/herself through the market (which was a major part of the original belief that each individual was entitled to a right to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). By removing the ability to enter the competitive market we have then effectively stagnated society and removed the potential for individuals to change social class (which, I will argue, is still relevant despite the fact that, at least in theory, we claim not to be a class structured society. While maybe not in the traditional sense, I believe our informal economic segregation could argue otherwise). My point being that, in a capitalist society, fiscal planning would, at least theoretically, lead to a stagnated society representative of the traditional European class structure from which our forefathers ultimately fled.

Taking the thought experiment a step farther, I also find it interesting that this class structure hierarchy from which we fled served as a foundational cornerstone for the enlightenment era’s political and philosophic obsession with private property (a principle still heavily relevant in our modern society), from which the desire to protect individual property led to the subsequent development of land use zoning… the same tool that has since justified the use of fiscal zoning and now holds the growing potential to reinstate the political/societal framework from which our forefathers considered detrimental to human liberty. While I openly admit there are a lot of theoretical IF’s in this thought experiment I do think it’s important to note the potential impact that currently acceptable governmental regulation can have. Fiscal zoning is continuing to grow in popularity and the government has stated, through judicial rulings, that this is an acceptable use of police power. While I have a lot of passion for the theoretical foundation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness it seems that over time we’ve allowed (and continue to allow) our freedoms to be compromised for the guarantee of comfort. Without challenges, without competition, we lose sight of our goals to try and be better people, a better society. We have lost sight of the endless pursuit of perfection and settled on a system with vast, obvious, flaws…

When I started writing this I did not consciously intend to come back to the main point of my first post, but apparently I have. I do think it’s an important one though… why settle with imperfection? Appreciate what we have, yes, but never lose the challenge of trying to make it even better. And I also feel that I should (for those of you who do not know we personally very well) explain that I am not universally against the existence and regulation of government. Not in the least. I just believe that we have gone astray, and that government should serve as a tool of the people… all people… and not as a tool to suppress the people. More importantly, I believe that a better government, and a better society, is actually possible… we just need to accept the fact that it will be difficult, that it will be time consuming, and there will be some initial hardships, but ultimately we can do better. We don’t need to settle…

Southeast Michigan at its Finest

First and foremost, my apologies for the delay. I made a personal promise to try and kick out a new post at least every week, and as you should be able to tell by my first two posts, have fallen flat on my ass. I suppose that’s the result of trying to maintain side projects in the final semester of my M.A. Anyway, I finally got on a rant again after a very good friend of mine called me and told me to check out an editorial that was posted in the Detroit Times today. Below is a copy of an e-mail that I sent out to my co-workers and Urban/political friends (and if there are any Urban/Political people I did not send this to but would be interested in future e-mails of similar nature, feel free to let me know). Anyway:

A close friend of mine back in MI just called me about this article. In the past he and I have talked about our country's current global focus and how our infrastructure was not only failing, but contributing to the decline of the American Society. I understand that many academics hate phrases like that because, yes, I am intentionally making a very deliberate, value laden statement about what is good for America and it's society, but when our political structures are producing populations like the one depicted in this article I believe I would be hard pressed to find anyone to defend this scenario as anything other than a tragedy and a warning flag.

It’s a story I feel should be shared, especially to anyone who believes that we, as Americans, are progressing as a society. This is not just a single incident but rather a brief insight into the type of people we, as the only consciously rational species on the planet, have chosen to become.

Frozen in indifference: Life goes on around body found in vacant Detroit warehouse
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090129/METRO08/901290400

I think after my last rant, and this e-mail, it should be at least somewhat obvious as to what my response was. If you have any thought's or comments on my words or the piece, please let me know. I'd be really interested in hearing people's opinion on our current "State of Society".
- Paul

(P.S. You can expect another post soon. I'm taking a Land-Use Law class right now and I've developed some pretty strong thoughts on Fiscal Zoning)