The here and now of the original underlies the concept of its authenticity, and on the latter in turn is founded the idea of a tradition which has passed object down as the same, identical thing to the present day. The whole sphere of authenticity eludes technological-and of course not only technological-reproduction. But whereas the authentic work retains its full authority in the face of a reproduction made by hand, which it brands a forgery, this is not the case with techno- logical reproduction. The reason is twofold. First, technological repro- duction is more independent of the original than is manual reproduction. For example, in photography it can bring out aspects of the original that are accessible only to the lens (which is adjustable and can easily change viewpoint) but not to the human eye; or it can use certain processes, such as enlargement or slow motion, to record images which escape natural optics altogether. This is the first reason. Second, technological reproduc- tion can place the copy of the original in situations which the original it- self cannot attain. Above ali, it enables the original to meet the recipient halfway, whether in the form of a photograph or in that a gramophone record. The cathedral leaves its site to be received in the studio of an art lover; the choral work performed in an auditorium or in the open air is enjoyed in a private room.
These changed circumstances may leave the artwork’s other properties untouched, but they certainly devalue the here and now of the artwork. And although this can apply not only to art but (say) to a landscape moving past the spectator in a film., in the work of art this process touches on a highly sensitive core, more vulnerable than that of any natural object. That core is its authenticity. The authenticity of a thing is the quintessence of all that is transmissible in it from its origin on, ranging from its physical duration to the historical testimony relating to it. Since the historical testimony is founded on the physical duration, the former, too, is jeopardized by reproduction, in which the physical duration plays no part. And what is really jeopardized when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object, the weight it derives from tradition. One might focus these aspects of the artwork in the concept of the aura, and go on to say: what withers in the age of the technological reproducibility of the work of art is the latter’s aura. This process is symptomatic; its significance extends far beyond the realm of art. It might be stated as a general formula that the technology of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the sphere of tradition. By replicating the work many times over, it substitutes a mass existence for a unique existence. And in lJermitting the reproduction to reach the recipient in his or her own situation, it actualizes that which is reproduced. These two processes lead to a massive upheaval in the domain of objects handed down from the past-a shattering of tradition which is the reverse side of the present crisis and renewal of humanity. Both processes are intimately related to the mass movements of our day. (Walter Benjamin, from The Age of Art In Its Technological Reproduction; His essay begins with the following quote: The true is what he can; the false is what he wants. -MADAME DE DURAS!
I don’t check into my Facebook page everyday. I rarely check into my MySpace musician page. Never do i drop into my LinkedIn. I rarely look at my Twitter feed. If I could experience some payoff due to twittering, I’d twitter.
Something like 50% of my time ‘in email’ is spent deleting spam from my 14 year old original email account. The four email discussion groups dearest to my heart have each in their different ways become mostly inactive. One other list I monitor has seen its traffic slow down 90%.
I read one forum–the Pedal Steel Guitar Forum–regularly. I drop into Brainstorms every now and then. I check out my various blog feed readers regularly too. I pay for the privilege of not being active on Ken Wilber’s Integral+Life.
My cell phone is a good way to communicate with me, yet I can count my phone correspondents on one hand.
I have three personal blogs and participate here. On my own blogs I post in flurries and back-date posts.
***
Although I long for the intellectual, soulful, creative, jockeying and collaboration which issue from people engaging each other via various internet modalities, what has transpired over the past two years is, as I view it, a substantial compression and truncation of the–as it were–”conversation.”
A good friend posed a philosophical question to me via my Facebook in-box. However, it made a reference to something somebody had mentioned to them. When I asked what else this third party had said, because I needed more information, I was told, “That’s all they said.” In any event, my Facebook in-box is not the way to ask me a question of any sort.
People pass tweets to me. I’m waiting for a tweet that isn’t a kernal, husk, glib pointer toward some hidden aperçu.
***
Recently, having re-read almost all of Ivan Illich, and bits of Adorno and Benjamin, I got to thinking about the illusion of autonomy in the context of net life. This fits into my developing, albeit inchoate, consideration of the semantic web, cloud applications–what is termed Web 3.0. It is is especially interesting to read how information is to be fit to user predilection in real time.
Is this the result of machine heuristics being maneuvered so as to intervene in my own?
From the recently rendered About Page to ND2.0.
Are we not somewhat in the context-free zone of the territories given by the post-post-modern free play of industrial solipsism and its committed end of histories?
Do you mean what you say? Do you understand what you say? In detaii? Do you feel it is an intellectual responsibility to try to mean what you say?
You claim to seek intellectual intercourse, yet you stand in front of the mirror pouting, and admiring the play of your lips….
Long ago, academic papers were about 20 pages long. Now one has to write a bloody book. The content’s the same – just padded. Your post are inflated. All pith and piss. No fruit. Or rather – little fruit.
Lessee, what have you added beyond the ad hominem?
Mostly: nada.
But you imply–I could be wrong–that you are involved in the academy. I’m really hoping so.
You wrote:
Do you feel it is an intellectual responsibility to try to mean what you say?
My opinion is that you will need to rephrase this in a meaningful way before I can answer what connects my saying with: your notion or some other notion of “intellectual responsibility.”
Your query is hung up on the assumption that the beholder is the arbiter of what counts for the writer’s own, in your words, “try[ing] to mean.” Right? You believe for unspecified reasons that I am doing something other than “try[ing] to mean.”
Do you have criteria for sorting this out? In other words, you have confidence–based in criteria or something else–in your ability to discern the status of, as-it-were, somebody trying, or not trying. I suppose you could reveal your criteria, and, then, demonstrate its connection with intellectual responsibility of some sort.
Then, I could figure out what you’re really asking and respond.
> in your words, “try[ing] to mean.” Right?
No no no you silly goose. Meaning is essentially public – and shared, or it it is not meaning.
You are – I can only deduce from your response – not trying to mean. Hence the masturbation reference.
If you can’t figure out what I am asking from my short, clear post, then I really don’t see the point of responding to you further. Where I to provide criteria you would – I do not doubt – demand criteria for determining whether the criteria were or were not appropriate. And that way madness lies.
You seek “fundamentals” but alas – find only your own fundament – and think you have got to the bottom of things….
Anyway, you did ask a few things clearly.
Do you mean what you say?
Yes.
Do you understand what you say?
Yup.
In detaii?
No such word: detaii. If you were trying to mean, ‘detail,’ my answer:
To some extent certain to me, yes.
Do you feel it is an intellectual responsibility to try to mean what you say?
As I’ve stated, I have little idea what you mean by connecting ‘intellectual responsibility’ with “try to mean.’
Thus, it’s not meaning, but rather how you the reader could arbitrate and determine whether the writer is trying or not, that hangs your proposition up.
I note your current track record is: you thought one thing, when, in actuality, the other thing was true.
Alas, it is not to be, but I would enjoy hearing the moralism, intellectual responsibility, fleshed out.
You wrote:
Were I to provide criteria you would – I do not doubt – demand criteria for determining whether the criteria were or were not appropriate.
My bad, you’re probably not in the academic world. See, there, whether the criteria is valid, and also whether the meta-criteria is valid, or appropriate, is critical to the mission of deploying same.
Yeah, not just any ol’ criteria will do.
You end with some purportedly knowing assertions. One thing: I’m not really driving to get to the bottom of anything. fyi
C’est la vie. You’re going to try not to respond, and, I’m going to rest easy in understanding that you mostly refuse to answer the questions posed to you.
Why, precisely? I am familiar with its meaning, both in the strict philosophical sense and the casual everyday sense. What is your detailed objection?
> Anyway, you did ask a few things clearly.
Actually, I asked EVERYTHING clearly.
>Do you mean what you say?
>Yes.
Well that’s good. In this respect at least – although perhaps alone – your morals are impeccable.
> Do you understand what you say?
> Yup.
Ah… That I rather doubt. Although I am perfectly happy to concede that you believe you understand what you say.
>In detaii?
>No such word: detaii. If you were trying to mean, ‘detail,’ my answer:
>To some extent certain to me, yes.
> Do you feel it is an intellectual responsibility to try to mean what you say?
> As I’ve stated, I have little idea what you mean by connecting ‘intellectual responsibility’ with “try to mean.’
> Thus, it’s not meaning, but rather how you the reader could arbitrate and determine whether the writer is trying or not, that hangs your proposition up.
I don’t see any particular problem here. Meaning is so intimately bound up with intention that one cannot have one without the other. Either that, or Paul Grice was very wrong!
Of course one can be wrong in a given case about whether or not someone is trying to mean. One can use language for many purposes – to attempt to impress, because one likes the sound of it, to deceive, to confuse, to name but a few. Deciding how it is being used in any particular case isn’t always easy. Particularly on a blog.
An example: let’s imagine someone bounces up to one in the street, fixes one in the eye and announces “colorless green ideas are sleeping furiously!”.
The question of whether they are TRYING to mean something is entirely appropriate. As is the separate question of whether or not the utterance is significant for them. (They might believe it is a pass-phrase, or uttering it wins them a prize.) As is the question as to whether or not they intend me to understand the meaning they may or may not be trying to convey. The reader, or in this case, listener, is ALWAYS involved in trying to “arbitrate and determine” (as you put it) whether a writer or interlocutor is “trying to mean”. You seem to regard it as “something extra” – but in reality it is an intrinsic element of meaning anything, and regarding someone as meaning something. Quite complex beliefs about speaker and listeners intentions are at the heart of their regarding the other’s utterances as meaningful.
And so when one happens upon a lengthy post, little of which rises above “colorless green ideas are sleeping furiously” in immediate sense, it is perfectly sensible question to ask. The answer to the question “was Joyce trying to mean in ‘Finnegans Wake’” will change one’s perception of the book. One struggles along with Heidegger because one believes he was trying to mean something: one occasionally gives up with Sartre because one has come to believe he wasn’t
> I note your current track record is: you thought one thing, when, in actuality, the other thing was true.
I’m afraid I can’t make sense of this sentence. I believe you are trying to mean something by it, so perhaps you might care to have another go.
>Alas, it is not to be, but I would enjoy hearing the moralism, intellectual responsibility, fleshed out.
>You wrote:
>Were I to provide criteria you would – I do not doubt – demand criteria for determining whether the criteria were or were not appropriate.
>My bad, you’re probably not in the academic world.
And you madam, are clearly not in the academic world of philosophy…
> See, there, whether the criteria is valid, and also whether the meta-criteria is valid, or appropriate, is critical to the mission of deploying same.
> Yeah, not just any ol’ criteria will do.
Ah lord you are serious aren’t you? THINK WOMAN!
Actually try and THINK for a moment! You can’t just stop at the meta criteria without good reason – the meta-meta-criteria cry out to be made ‘valid’ (as you put it…). Then the meta-meta-meta criteria. And so on, in infinite regress. Now, as any practising epistemologist will tell you, justification has to come to an end somewhere. But if that is so, there is no a-priori reason why they should not come to an end with themselves. Giving reasons why they should come to an end either here or there is of course a legitimate move to make – but that is merely a pragmatic consideration, subject to agreement, and always open to further question should one choose.
BTW: you throw around a concept of “validity” without anywhere explaining what you mean by it. Outside the context of sylogistic argument and formal proofs, the meaning is thoroughly opaque.
Or are just another sad academic, thrashing around in the foot-hills of philosophy because you were never actually trained to think? [You don't, perhaps, teach linguistics do you? - that would explaiin a lot!]
>One thing: I’m not really driving to get to the bottom of anything. fyi
Which is precisely why I accused you of masturbation.
> C’est la vie. You’re going to try not to respond,
Wishful thinking, I suspect.
> and, I’m going to rest easy in understanding that you mostly refuse to answer the questions posed to you.
Just how much wronger can you be…
Go on – post a reply – and show us!
marmalade – please do not impugn linguistics. a small request from your humble correspond-ant.
btw, grice. mmmm, not sure about the co-operative principle. although i have argued for its usefulness as (ahem) an explanatory ‘tool’ in the past. so perhaps just go ahead being co-operative with our hoon.
I’m not an academic.
Wailing away about the regress of justification is besides the point. I asked you about your own criteria–that you used to determine that I wasn’t trying to mean.
I also asked you what you mean by intellectual responsibility.
You can beat around the bush, appeal to your own authority, and insult/patronize me all you want. But, if I grow weary enough, find my bemusement framing something other than my wish to learn your answers, then I’ll surely, after consultation, remove you from the blog.
fyi
validity
Ugly threats are for ugly people, not innocent trolls who’ve wandered through
the doors “invited”. Many an innocent troll turns out to be a worthwhile companion
when given the time to norm to the group. Of course I’m not the one having a
point I’m trying to make disputed in such eloquent, maddening and simplistic fashion.
Advice from the sidelines, YMMV.
Frank