The Internet & The Lack of Polity

Communications methods were characterized by oppositions such as hot or cold and democratic or undemocratic at earlier points this semester. All good, but there are other considerations as well. Traditional communications theory is also concerned with the idea of keeping a channel open. Jakobson described a phatic function to communication, something we see best in the word "hello" or dial tone. It is a simple recognition that the channel is functional.

CMC has the downside that we might just be communicating to the ether, ourselves, or only to like-minded people so the channel is functioning in a limited manner. Like the Deaniacs who were so convinced of their own virture they spiraled into irrelevance on the Internet we might not be effectively communicating or opening a channel. The phatic is sacrificed for the ideological. Agonistic communication is favored over the decentered. There are some lessons here from Robbie(p.65):

"Recognition that principles are the basis of historic change and continuity also illuminates the problem of nihilism in modern experiece. When men recognize that their opponents have principles, albeit ones that are different from their own, they recognize something independent of themselves and their opponents that can reasonably be discussed. A very different situation results when men deny that their opponents have principles..."

"... without principles of order, all innovations depend on self-confirming myths with which form can be forcefully imposed upon change. Both revolutionary and reactionary nihilists arbitrarily depict a golden age and use it to batter reality into its shape...As soon as principles of order have been denied there can be no discussion. The myth must reign over all, or all wil collapse into anarchy...ideologists have a penchant for terror, for they have no other means for resolving basic disagreements..." (Man and His Circumstances: Ortega as Educator, 1971)

CMC is wonderful, but there needs to be some thought considering the following: a de-centering of communication so it is about ideas not personalities. This is also a problem we see in talk radio and the like. Second the building of community and consensus, a problem when people only read what they want to hear on the same websites everyday. And finally a de-mythological function that avoids violence and terror instead of allowing the spread of it. To some extent these are phatic functions: the keeping of channels open.

I will be starting On Dialogue today, which I hope addresses some of these questions.