Based on a phenomenal book by Jakob Linaa Jenson: “ The medieval Internet”
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https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/54901077Speaker 0 (0s): See, hope you are ready for the next episode. Hey, welcome to the next episode.
Speaker 1 (8s): We're getting into the medieval internet here. This particular chapter is going to be specifically about instruments of internet. Power I'm going to get into the micro as well as the macro level. So let's jump right in here. Instruments of internet Power in the digital age, this is part of three of the series. The sociological study of communities and the public sphere has aimed at looking at what forces bind people together and how society emerges in that framework to play the necessary role of mediating between individuals in nature, another influential approach, which is sometimes correlated to the above approach and sometimes competes with it is to study power.
As it constitutes social relations, regulating actions and institutions, finding subjects to rulers and penetrating the entire social order from government and the family life. Let us try to figure it out how the internet, which was touted by futurists in the 1990s and the two thousands as the ultimate tool have freedom. The liberating WEPAN giving the grassroots a voice and a space against the oppression in all its forms has been more coolly seen in the last decade as a means to exorcize various forms of Power strengthening rather than weakening Power relations.
That keep the social order as strictly hierarchized and controlled. We are going to define and identify and describe a range of online Power mechanisms from the direct and instrumental to Structural and algorithmic. Let's talk a little bit about the power. I'm sorry. The concept of Power power and the way it binds social relations is among the most discussed topics in sociology, as well as in political theory, the mini diverging concepts of power might be summarized on a scale from actor based to structure based in short, from an instrumental view to a structural view on the one side of the scale Power can be ascribed to individual agency.
Whereas two, the other side of the scale power is embedded in structures and agency, which has a definite force and effect in the eighties and nineties, many most notably Anthony Giddens attempted to give a more complex account of the dialectic between agency and structure by viewing structure itself as structured by the changing the result of the continual course of agent structure relations in which agents find and exploit holes and structures and thereby change the structures imminent form.
The actor based instrumental view is often found in the liberal tradition, for instance, by Robert doll, it is also a dominant in the American sociological tradition of symbolic interactionism for instance, in the works of George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blummer here, power is a product of human habits, norms and actions that are ultimately turned into rules and institution Governing the power structures of society in this tradition.
However, power structures are always subject to change based on human actions. In this tradition, there was a profound focus on agency and thereby fundamentally on the freewill and empowerment of individual. You take a few minutes to think about how your life is structured. Where does the power lie in your life? Are you someone who has legitimate power in that people look up to you? Are you someone that has coercive power as in you can't do something to them negatively, if they don't follow what you say,
Speaker 2 (4m 37s): Do you work
Speaker 1 (4m 38s): For an institution that has power? Thus, some of that power is lent to you. What is your role in the world and how does power or your personal power manifest itself in the world in which you live?
Speaker 2 (4m 54s): It's a good
Speaker 1 (4m 55s): Idea to take a moment right here, just to go over that concept and think about where you fit in.
Speaker 2 (4m 59s): We have this, once you do that, I think you'll have
Speaker 1 (5m 3s): A better understanding of how the internet
Speaker 2 (5m 6s): Has
Speaker 1 (5m 8s): Found ways to either compliment the Power you have, or to take away
Speaker 2 (5m 14s): The power that you have
Speaker 1 (5m 19s): Structural view is found in the American sociological tradition of Structural functionalism. Most clearly found in the works of Talcott Parsons and his followers. Here's the society can be explained by a scheme. Parsons was known for his famous agile scheme, a G I
Speaker 2 (5m 38s): L
Speaker 1 (5m 41s): Reference in which humans and organizations are defined by the functions they achieve and perform. Let's think about that for just a minute. This is a reference in which humans and organizations are defined by the functions they achieve and perform. How many people do you know? The first question they ask, I ask, if you meet somebody like, Hey, what do you do? Hey, my name is so-and-so. What do you do? Or I'm a lawyer, or I'm a truck driver, or I'm a teacher.
These particular sets of labels. They make some people feel great. They make other people feel poorly. However, there are just a little bit so on one level, but on another level, they are in fact, a definition of who you are to me. It's I think it's really sad. A lot of people define who they are by what they do in a small area of their life. And if something happens to that small area of them life, all of a sudden, they no longer know themselves.
They can fall into a deep depression because this little small sliver of what they do has gone. And so now they have nothing. The thing to base their life fun. When in fact they probably have all kinds of things. Oh no, you're no longer with that company. Guess what? Your still a dad, you were still a husband is still a brother is still a person on this planet. You're still a good person. You still have this hobby. Like you were still all of these other things because you gave so much authority to this one slice when that's gone.
It can seem as though, so your life is gone where your life is different. Is it? And to think about it is kind of fascinating here. Humans are wheel's in the huge machinery of society. And power is explained by the logic of social structures or a similar view of power. As a secondary phenomenon is also found in the French structuralist tradition, for instance, associated with the famous anthropologist cloud Levi Strauss and sociologists like Pierre Bourdieu here, the exercise of power is seen as embedded and defined by structures, which operate through societal norms and institutions.
While the instrumentalist view on Power clearly postulates the individual capacity to exercise power and thereby responsibility in line with a greater liberal tradition from Conte to J S mill. The Structural tradition takes a much more skeptical view of the limits of human autonomy. If one takes the Structural position to its extreme human's are only, node's in giant societal structures in which they have no direct influence.
And then No responsibility. This of course raises two interesting questions. First, where did the structures come from? Were they given buy a divine power or as something existing prior to society and human interactions by the species nature of the human animal. This is a profound, philosophical question. All ultimately leading to another question, is there free will many philosophical traditions have tried to answer this question, but here we will focus on the answers from sociology in the structuration theory of Anthony Giddens, to which we have referred previously, an attempt is made to make peace between the classically liberal and the Structural is a tradition by arguing that Power structures while reel are created a continuously through human interactions that take place within certain frames and structures that supply them with rationality and motivation, the possibility of agency thereby is not unlimited, but the exercise of free will is also not denied.
In fact, it is necessary for structures to adapt to the circumstances that changed partly due to the very success of a given structure. Another tradition addressing these questions is found among the social constructivists, for instance, Berger and Luckman. They take the models proposed by symbolic interactionism and use them to emphasize the indispensable role of language in the interplay between individuals and society, society, and its institutions exist in a me Lu in a male oo consisting not only a natural givens, but also one of the language and discourse through which these are understood.
She was, are bound by the same institutions that facilitate communication and reflection itself, thus language in the possibility of changing existing discourses and understandings offer individuals and groups, the possibility of finding options for action and understanding that change and reinforce social norms and order like Structural like structure, sorry, like structuration theory, social constructivism leaves room for agency, which ultimately is the way in which the traditional idea of freewill has been conceptualized.
Once you guys take on the freewill question, you go on with Sam Harris. I don't know. I don't know if I believe that guy. It seems like there's something off about that guy. Anyways, a very influential example of the social constructivist tradition has found in Michael Fu Colt, despite being often labeled as a post structuralists a label to which a full called himself objected. He represents a special branch of the social constructivist tradition with a special focus on Power for cult saw Power as something produced through the organization of space, place, and institutions and reproduced by humans subscribing to you and interacting within these structures.
Four for cult, all social relations and interactions are both formed by Power and create a form of power by participating in society and its institutions. Humans reproduce the power that binds them four for a cult power is exercised in three forms of relations as strategic game playing as domination and as government technologies, hereby, he summarizes a span of Power forms also found in the work by Stephen Lukes from the individual and through the institutional or to the societal as such one might claim he bridges the concepts of Power found in symbolic interactionism as well as structuralism, not only language, but also knowledge is of paramount importance and old proverb States.
That knowledge is power for Colt inverts. This claim arguing that Power is the ability to define knowledge in which the researcher would explore different truth regimes. That is regimes of the possibility of such and such a statement being true or false, depending on the social epistemological context or a piston comparable to what Kuhn calls a paradigm and demonstrated what he meant by showing how the concepts of sane and insane IL and Well normal or perverted have changed over time for a cult.
I was interested in the marginal, the outsider as a prism to identify the truth regimes at play in a given Epic and society. Thus tracing the ways in which a given social order regulated the associates, humans, themselves, exercise power by following the dominant discourses, subscribing to such regimes and definitions. However, also the theory of the caller has volunteeristic elements. What he calls heterotopia has the possibility of deviating and challenging existing concept and thereby structures of Power.
Even though one cannot escape Power that runs like society and humans like a stream for a cult to spite often being labeled as pessimists and fatalist leave some room for agency.
Speaker 3 (14m 12s): Alright, so lets break that down a little bit here. I just jumped back up to at the beginning of that last paragraph that I read, not only language, but also knowledge is of paramount importance and old Proverbs States. That knowledge is power. Okay. Here's where it gets good for cult inverts. This claim arguing that Power is the ability to define knowledge. Think about that.
That's that's an amazing claim. Power is the ability to define knowledge Power is the ability to define knowledge. What does that mean to you? As someone who's knowledgeable may be someone that you seek out for advice, but the very person who can define what knowledge is, is the person who Can Lynn credence or define that who can be powerful if you define the knowledge and you define who can be powerful and who defines the knowledge in our time, who's redefining our language at all times, culture would be an acceptable answer if we were talking 20 years ago and it may even be an acceptable answer today.
However, the main driver of culture right now would be the social media companies. Therefore they would be the arbiters of Power. These handful of a multibillion dollar corporations are in fact, the very institutions that define what knowledge is. And you could see now more than ever that they're censoring what's happening. Therefore they're limiting the knowledge.
You can see they are narrowing the terms there. When you, when you narrow the terms of a conversation, when you narrow the parameters, you know, you narrow the view, right? We often speak about how the world is made of language. We often speak about perception and point of view. However, the words you use to have a lot to do with that, and this is one of the main points that this book has trying to make, or I'm sorry, this is while it is one of the main points this book has trying to make.
This is a foundational part of the argument. Do you see the social media companies are narrowing our vision of what is possible? There are limiting our view of what can be said, what can be done in the name of equality in the name of sustainability, we're going to narrow your choices. There's a lot of psychology. There's a lot of philosophy that I think is dog shit.
However, I'm a goddamn truck driver. So what the fuck do I know there was a lot of these new paradigms to talk about choices, bad for you. You, you spend to much time, I'm trying to decide. And in the end it doesn't matter. Well, it matters to me that it matters to other people. And in fact, I would argue the people in positions of authority, who are telling us that we don't need choice are the very same people that want choice in their life. So they want choice for them, but not for me.
Speaker 2 (17m 60s): Right? And when you do that, you, when you have a shelter point of view, I mean that's ignorance, right? And it's just so much
Speaker 3 (18m 12s): Sad to see an instrument like the internet that has so much potential being used to
Speaker 2 (18m 20s): Being
Speaker 3 (18m 21s): Used to pare down, being used to limit, being used to imprison instead of the free us. And as the argument they're making about Power and how that is leading us backwards into the internet, or I'm sorry, that's how that's leading us backwards.
Speaker 2 (18m 41s): This
Speaker 3 (18m 41s): Unbelievable tool that was thought to be a beacon of light, a light house of freedom blinking to ship's out on the ocean of chaos is more like a tractor beam pulling you in to a narrow port, pulling you into the center of the spider's web.
Speaker 2 (20m 6s): <inaudible>.
I want you to think for just a few, for a moment, maybe a few minutes, just how relevant that is today. And might that be the very foundational problem with our society right now? I'm going to read it again. All of those, such a direct physical coercion and worked on the margins to social order, depending on the average person, internalizing an ethos in which their self-worth depended on a form of obedience to social order, depending on the social order
Speaker 3 (21m 58s): Today depends upon you internalize
Speaker 2 (22m 1s): Amazing and reasoning and believing whole heartedly that your self worth is linked to what you have. Your self worth is linked to what label you put on yourself. That's the obedience. The obedience is where you work. The obedience has the label. You have. The obedience is your tribe.
The obedience is you recycling. The obedience is if you want to be a good person, you better not vote for this dummy. The obedience is
Speaker 3 (22m 44s): A form of self censorship.
Speaker 2 (22m 48s): Do you see that? And if you could say,
Speaker 3 (22m 50s): I just think for a moment how sad twisted that is. I think you could understand why people, men and women and children, black and white and Brown and orange and yellow It whatever. All people today are struggling. Everyone is fighting a losing battle a little bit here. You may not even be aware up in medieval, especially and modern society. When I'm coming from a concept of how much is relevant today in a medieval, as well as in 2020, the modern context October to know how the lockdown in medieval society Power was instrumental.
The actor based as well as the structures surfs in Paris charade, we were in some cases to the economy in order to put on the Woodring, you know, in various director of physical exercise of power with a sequel, a we've all been to make them work and obey. I know lane that these labels, it was a book called the 48 laws of power, this social policing of ourselves green. I think that's what his name is.
But if he was going to be green at 48 laws of Power financial, Herman's the same while you can be happier. So 48 laws of power, 48 laws of desire, 48 laws. It's a medieval. This is hard for about the other ones so that the laws of mastery I think is one of them, but it's really good. And it goes into different Structural power. As far as coerce at the core function to produce intimate Power of what could be accepted interruptive Power some, some of them one could not be excited is well worth checking out little side note. There are for exactly what Robert Green in the social media companies are doing today.
Speaker 2 (24m 35s): Although
Speaker 3 (24m 35s): Such as a direct, a physical version, it worked on the March and his word to social order. Do you call that guy to meet the average peasant or surf internalizing an ethos in which there are no words it's okay to do is dependent on a form called white BBDS horrible name. That's fine. On a structural level, the Catholic church function to produce a truth regime C of which could be accepted. We're going back, right?
Speaker 2 (25m 1s): Yeah. And we can't fix a critic.
Speaker 3 (25m 5s): It's the truth and power. One kind of racism, challenging dominant worldview. We're accused of hearsay and threatened for even burned at the stake on a structural level at the Catholic church function to produce a truth regime of what could be accepted and whatnot. Critics have truth and power. Those challenging, the dominant worldview were accused of hearsay and threatened or even burned at the stake. Critics have truth and power.
Those challenging, the dominant worldview were accused of hearsay and threatened or even burned at this stage.
Speaker 2 (25m 49s): Critics of so-called truth. And so-called, Power
Speaker 3 (25m 56s): Challenging the dominant world. If you were burned at the stake. I think about that in today's idea, what is a narrative you're not supposed to challenge in the one of the consequences. Let's say you had a, a meeting that say you were going to your kid's school. And it was a conference where you were with parents and teachers. And they were asking questions about issues. And some people were standing up raising their hand, addressing things. And you decided that you were going to
Speaker 2 (26m 27s): Challenge
Speaker 3 (26m 28s): Or ask questions about a popular narrative and you stood up and you said, hi. I just wanted to stand up in and let everybody know that global war.
Speaker 2 (26m 39s): It is
Speaker 3 (26m 40s): Not entirely true that while the planet is warming, the planet climate has been changing forever. And that no one accounts for lots of different variables. Instead, we just claim that it's man made global warming and that therefore we need to restrict property rights. We need to restrict rights of people and that people are pretty, pretty horrible in there killing the planet.
That's bullshit. And if you, if you stood up and you said something to that matter, you would probably be looked down upon. If you said you didn't believe global warming. If you say, listen, I, I think this is bullshit. And here's why I would probably be a lot of people that just shut their eyes or shut their ears off. At the moment. You said you don't believe global warming. They wouldn't listen to the evidence you presented. They wouldn't listen to the books you've read. They wouldn't listen to the theories about season's in a galactic year.
Instead, they would just say, you're a dummy. You don't know what you're talking about. Right? This is exactly why in the movie, the matrix Morpheus says to Neo that we don't wake people up after a certain age. Not because they can't wake up. All right. Do you guys remember that scene where Morpheus tells, tells that to Neil? Well, what he's saying is that you can wake people up later in life. You can show them this stuff. However, it's very difficult and dare I say impossible to wake up someone who's pretending to sleep.
You know what I mean by that? Have you ever like pretending to sleep as much as had to wake you up and do you know if I can wake up right? Because you don't want to wake up, you're not even sleeping. He just don't want to fucking hear it. You don't want to be around it. Do you want to see it? And that's it? Well, unfortunately, a lot of people are right now is they don't have time to worry about, about that. And so they're just herded into the pins and pushed along and used as political and momentum for the rest of the agenda.
And that's what the heck it comes along. And that some of it is it. I think maybe we weren't even returning to the middle-aged you maybe we haven't left to right. A middle age. It's interesting to think about, let's talk a little bit about how the church, which is similar to social media companies today, and a strategy that works for the church that is currently working for the social media companies today. And that is having a monopoly of the education system and having openings.
It allowed bright non aristocrats to advance in society. The church exercise to a strong disciplinary Power
Speaker 2 (29m 43s): Power do is to,
Speaker 3 (29m 47s): We have both the ethical and cosmological vision of the life of the most people, societies were structurally legitimated by reference to the principal's autumn braided by the church symbolically. This was figured in urban space, by the central position of the cathedrals,
Speaker 2 (30m 10s): Practically
Speaker 3 (30m 11s): This rationalized a church's domination have education, even though in certain parts of Europe like Northern Italy, this was being challenged in the 15th century and social insurance aid to the poor or the destitute was officially in the hands of the church together with the Kings and the feudal Lords. The church imposed an order in which the macro causes that the church represented was reproduced in the microcosm of the world until the world ended.
And the kingdom of heaven began. Likewise, modern society is full of direct and observable Power relations for instance, between government and population parents and kids, teachers, and pupils. But there are also more structurally invisible power relationships that are less simply classified, dominant, worldviews truths that are rarely challenged. Those are all similar to the middle ages.
Examples are the technological optimism shared by almost all governments in the world. The big data ideology that is used as an instrument of governance in a growing number of societies and the reliance on algorithms and algorithmic governance, which I will discuss it
Speaker 2 (31m 39s): Cass later, right?
Speaker 3 (31m 42s): Algorithms do a lot of work in the contemporary world. The eight governments and health authorities defined what we find on Google and see on Facebook and all of the soft determinants that shape our range of possible actions and thus our worldview. But unlike the Catholic church,
Speaker 2 (32m 0s): Which feels like
Speaker 3 (32m 3s): <inaudible> in public, the source of the algorithmic power is harder to detect. All algorithms can ultimately be traced back to programmers, to humans, but as more and more algorithms are generated and closed circuits within the domain of machine learning, the ability to trace them back to the original watchmaker, to compare the original intention to the actual practice, to disentangle the unintended consequences from the core program,
Speaker 2 (32m 32s): It becomes hard, difficult, almost impossible. The problems this raises are almost unsurmountable. There are fundamental putting in question, the future of agency and ultimately the role of freewill or the autonomy of the subject upon the assumption of which are liberal democratic societies rest.