i'm sure he would, but marx argued that exact point. i think most of the elaboration is in das kapital, but the shortest and most flowery statement is in the communist manifesto (which he was commishioned to write, BTW):

"Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind."

that's right out of the openning.



pretty spot-on. i think Marcuse might phrase it a little differently. the term "One-Dimensional" figures in the name of several sections of his book as well as the title. i think for Marcuse it really doesn't matter what the technology is, as long as it's being advertised rigorously. here's another quote:

"The means of mass transportation and communication, the commodities of lodging, food, and clothing, the irresistible output of the entertainment and information industry carry with them prescribed attiudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers more or less pleasantly to the producers and, through the latter, to the whole [societal system]... And as these beneficial products become available to more individuals in more social classes, the indoctrination they carry ceases to be publicity; it becomes a way of life. It is a good way of life--much better than before--and as a good way of life, it militates against qualitative change. Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior in which ideas, aspirations, and objectives that, by their content, transcent the established universe of discourse and action are either repelled or reduced to terms of this universe. They are redefined by the rationality of the given system and of its quantitative extension."

if it hasn't become obvious, social theorists are wordy. basically he's saying that the things we buy come with an ideology we buy into. we don't just buy things, we buy a life. and we believe it's a good life. why would we want to change it? in fact, it's such a good life, everyone should want to live this life. i think most people do, so i don't really need to pay attention to them to get them. and anyone who doesn't must be a freak, so i shouldn't even bother listening to them. they could be dangerous.

that's a bit of an exaggeration for sure. but look at terrorism as a perfect example. i'm not going to go too far into it because it's a controversial issue, but that's all i need to say to make my real point. how many people do you think would be willing to publicly say, "maybe we should listen to what the terrorists have to say"? as our illustrious and soon-to-be-ex president (praise the constitution, it's almost over!), "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists." and if you're with us, you obivously already think and want everything we think and want, right?

so, moving into a lighter example, you can look at Orwell's 1984. remember Newspeak? remember how the main character thought it remembeled ducks quacking? it didn't need to be more than that because Newspeak was only about exhanging orders, not ideas. it could just have easily been binary, and a modern-day Orwell might very likely use binary instead.

whether you see 'operationalism' as an insidious form of social control or a mere misfortune of our time, or something made up entirely, is of course up to you. but i do think there's something to be said for its relation to our economic lifestyles. a great deal of consumer products are presented as materials with which to build a lifestyle. even religion.



what's to say most of us would? i'm a dystopian writer myself. i mean, my screen name is dystopic  one thing i try to remember when i delve into social theory is that it's not like physical science at all. physical science doesn't really deal with truth; it deals with theory and large amounts of evidence. but because of the nature of social science and the complexity of its field of inquiry, social theory is at times much more like philosophy than scientific knowledge. so while social theory does try to ground itself in empiricial observation, certainty is a much more elusive objective than it is in the physical sciences. i think deep down, social theorists want to inspire people to change as much as anything, but they get bogged down in thick jargon too much to grab people's hears the way scripture, poetry, dance or art can.

so when dealing with social theory, i try to remember that there are always exceptions. and when thinking about social theory when contructing a story, the exceptions can actually make very interesting characters. in science fiction you can take something you observe in today's world to exteremes we can productively, but only, imagine. couple those extremes to a main character (protagonist or otherwise) who doesn't 'fit in', and i think if nothing else you've got a story people can relate to. no matter how many people do fit in to this dehumanized lifestyle, i think the temptation to break out of it is deep down somewhere in almost every person.

something i believe is that anything one person is capable of, any of us could be capable of. somewhere in each of us is a mother teresa, and a hilter, and they could come out given different circumstances (not just what's happening right now, but throughout our lives). i can see why most people wouldn't want to believe this, and to be sure i'm not accusing anyone of anything. i chose to believe this because when i meet encounter people i don't understand (in person or in history), it forces me to try and sympathize with them. why do they do the things they do? how do they see the world? how do they see people like me and those i love? why? it might not be an outlook that would work for most people, but it works for me. it certainly helps make me a better writer, i think. but as an individual, i tend to value understanding more than other possibilities (probably a reason i haven't had any relationships work out for very long  ), but it is what it is.

N-E-whoo...
(pun on the conversation topic intended)



why not take it a step farther and have organice micro circuitry that could release neutrotransmitters directly into appropriate portions of the brain? not sure that would really help "avoid" the problem though...



see, the thing is, i think this non-personal communication goes hand-in-hand with city life. before the internet, there was the telephone, the pony express, the royal messenger, the clay tablet... back when we were tribal, the most advanced communication technology we had was ritual. i think in some respects, modern technology helps fulfill the desire people have to be part of a small tribe, but allow them to live their cosmopolitan lifestyles with all the amenities of city life as well. the unfortunate consequence is that people feel no obligation to give the slightest damn about anyone who's not part of their little clique.

what could avoid all of this? i don't know. part of me wants to say making the virtual world more real, with real consequences, real policing, a formal registration process of some kind even. exchange certain freedoms-to for certain freedoms-from, if that makes any sense.

well, i wouuldn't want that, and i don't think you would either. and i don't think it'll happen, either. though, registering your online self needn't remove your anonymity from other joe users. i mean, i go to the grocery store and no one knows who i am. but my ATM debit card is registered, as is my club card. if i steel something and i'm caught, the police will deal with me. in other words, "the system" knows who i am, even if other users don't.



by jove you've got it! that's exactly the sort of thing i was getting at. an integration of real life and the virtual world, made to appear as seamless as possible. you wouldn't even have to walk into a restaurant. you could say, "PDA, i'm hungry. what are the specials tonight at nearby restaurants?" the bus station wouldn't just download the schedule; it'd show you exactly where the next bus is (GPS tracking) and even how full it is. and actually, UCSD's shuttle services have GPS tracking tied into them, so with an internet connection i actually can see where most of these busses are at a given point; check it out: WWW Link (click on 'track it live' and look for green dots or arrows).

your point about it appearing to be easier is also a big one. when everything works right, maybe it even really is easier. but how often do things work right? how many more occasions for human error would a system like this offer? how much harder would it be to get simple things done if this system went on the fritz?

but even when things do work right, there's still a trade off. it's been my observation that just because you can do something faster doesn't mean your life is easier. generally when people perceive that something shouldn't take long, or will now take less time than it did before, they expect you to do more in total. workplace is the perfect example. i try never to appear as efficient as i really am. if i did, my bosses would just give me more to do. just because i can finish task X more quickly than they think i can doesn't mean task X is easier or less work.

i think people can be much the same in their personal/social lives. people, at least people my own age, act like there's something wrong with me because i don't want to go out at least once a week. i've always known that i'll have to pair writing with something else in my life to actually make money, but people are often surprised to hear that that other thing could be homemaking: yes, i think i could actually be happy as a homemaker, but a big part of that is the attraction of not spending so much of my energy on work. the general mentiality seems to be, "don't you want to do more with your life?"

anyway this is getting a little off topic. i think two appealing possibilities for characters in a world like this could be: someone who purposefully "un-plugs" from the system and starts seeing the world through his/her own eyes without all the virtual embellishment. the other would be an exceptional hacker: someone who has almost limitless ability inside the system, but who was no one exceptional outside of it (and the whole double-identity thing is a fairly interesting theme in itself).