[Upd-discuss] Re: Article: A cyberspace Lenin: why not? By Slavoj Zizek

[johnjc-upd@eunew.com]

When you talk about "a cyberspace Lenin", are you suggesting that Bill=20
Gates is on course to be to cyperspace in some sense as Lenin was to the=20
Russian people? e.g. controlling the communications media with an iron fist?

If so, I can see the sense of that, but it seems a bit obtuse as an arguing=
=20
point because of course Lenin controlled what people ate and did as well=20
and tried to control what they thought. Or do you think Gates is aiming at=
=20
that?

My own view is that Gates is in it primarily for the fun, and that the=20
consequences for the rest of us, to the extent he's aware of them, are=20
probably not very well understood.  I don't know whether that makes him=20
better or worse than Lenin.  But bringing Lenin into the fray either as=20
friend or enemy can only muddy the water.

At 22:03 19/05/05, Zapopan Martin Muela-Meza wrote:
>Lars Aronsson says:
>
> > Lenin was a mass murderer, just like his follower Stalin. These
> > people have nothing in common with anything this list is about.
>
>What Lars is doing is known as logical fallacies of expression, in this
>case a fallacy of distraction to deviate the sustance of the argument with
>other nonsensical things, like attacking persons (argumentum ad hominem),
>Lenin, Stalin and me as a suppossedly "follower" of them, instead of
>"attacking" the arguments being discussed. And he is doing so to change
>the subject, that is, he changes my topic or argument with his personal
>anti-communistic, anti-leninist, and anti-stalinist views or political
>ideologies.
>
>Take a look at the mission of the UPD:
>Mission
>Union for the Public Domain (UPD) is a non-profit citizens group. Our
>mission is to protect and enhance the public domain in matters concerning
>intellectual property. We are a membership organization, acting as an
>independent voice on intellectual property issues.
>
>So, as you can see, I sent an article written by Zizek, and I particularly
>excerpted two paragraphs, which Lars is not mentioning. Zizek, the whole
>article and particularly my excerpts "act as an independent voice on
>intellectual property issues." Yes, Zizek is making a comparison of the
>Lenin's ideas with the free access (public domain) to the Internet. He is
>also arguing about the antagonisms capitalism itself has created and its
>impacts of who owns human intellect expressions, manifestations and
>transformations... to that point that he warns that part of human genoma
>may be already copyrighted by "intellectual property" enforcers. Thus, the
>article is not a brain-wash to join marxism, or communism, or socialism,
>or Leninism or Stalinism as Lars wrongly suggests; the article hast to do
>with the mission of this list. If Lars' ideology is that of a brave anti
>Lenin's and Stalin's ideas, views, and whatever, okay, that's fine, even
>twins have different points of views. But he should debate regarding the
>topics, and arguments, not shooting down people. And if some critics, such
>as Zizek bring to his theoretical framework the thought of Lenin, well,
>Zizek-Lenin's ideas should then be debated. Lars and other members of the
>UPD and its list should, guarantee the freedom of expression each member
>may have, and debate on each other's views, instead of trying to exclude
>other members' arguments or the members themselves by attacking the
>members  (argumentum ad hominem).
>
>And returning to the arguments of Zizek.
>
>As I informed you before, I published recently, in Spanish, in the Mexican
>journal Raz=F3n y Palabra. La Primera Revista Electr=F3nica en Am=E9rica=
 Latina
>sobre T=F3picos de Communicaci=F3n (Reason and Word. The First Electronic
>Journal in Latin America on Topics of Communications), the article  "The
>age of the corporate state versus the informational and cognitive public
>domain." See:
>http://www.cem.itesm.mx/dacs/publicaciones/logos/
>http://www.razonypalabra.org.mx/actual/zmuela.html
>See also for an English abstract:
>http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00003658/
>
>The whole issue (No.) was a special one devoted to disscuss "the right to
>information into the knowledge society: an institutional approach."
>
>Here I assessed some publications by Zizek and I found him very critical
>and analytical in line with my main argument which was to critisise the
>advent of the state as a corporate state against the public domain of
>information and knowledge, in part affecting libraries and other
>repositories of public knowledge which is main subject of the PhD I am
>doing in England.
>
>In this article I cited a Spanish article published in Argentina by Zizek
>which is extracted from his book The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre
>of Political
>Ontology<http://www.versobooks.com/books/tuvwxyz/xyz-titles/zizek_subject.s=
html>.
>
>Here Zizek --theoretically and philosophically speaking-- calls for a
>politization of the economy in this way:
>
>"An extra indicator of the need of some kind of politization of the
>economy is the perspective overtly "irrational" of the concentration cuasi
>monopoliistic of political power in the hand of a lone individual or
>corporation, such is the case of Rupert Murdoch or of Bill Gates. If the
>next decade produces the unification of multiple communication media into
>a single apparatus that combines all the characteristics of an interactive
>computer, a TV, a video and audio equipment and if Microsoft really
>achieves to become the owner cuasi monopolistic of that new universal
>medium, controlling not only the language being employed, but also the
>conditions of its application, then it is obvious that we will confront
>the absurd situation where a single agent, free of all public control,
>will domain all the basic communicational structure of our lives and
>he/she will be, therefore, more powerful than any government." (Zizek,
>2000).
>
>My whole article deals with the restoration of the public domain, as
>explained by Marquand (Marquand, D. (2004). Decline of the public: The
>hollowing-out of citizenship. Cambridge, UK: Polity.), where citizens
>submit under the public domain (or interests, or sphere) all the social
>issues that matters to the public. The takeover of corporations of the
>States, governments, public and social institutions is something that my
>article critisises, and Zizek's arguments are, among others' such as
>Frederick Engels --on the explanation of the State origins--, Herbert
>Schiller, Brian Martin, Ruth Rikowsky, Marquand, Dominique Wolton,
>Dyer-Witheford, Juan Domingo Arugueyes, and others, just according to my
>lines of research.
>
>Due to all of this I found very interesting to share with you some of the
>Zizek's ideas I have already been acquainted with, only for theoretical
>and debatible purposes. And if he or other critics, researchers or
>activists happen to make their arguments comparing whatever with Lenin,
>Stalin, Hussein, Bush or any other political figure, okay, be so, let us
>then debate the ideas, arguments, and so on, but not to try to divert and
>distract the attention due to the personal ideologies, or political
>phobias.
>
>I resend you what I send you in case you want to probe it fits with the
>UPD mission.
>
>Regards,
>
>Zapopan Muela, librarian
>PhD candidate
>Information Studies
>University of Sheffield, UK
>---------------------------
>p.s. and if  Lenin was a mass murderer, just like his follower Stalin.
>Okay, we have read you, but I am not discussing about mass murderers or
>angelical samaritans.
>Zizek, Slavoj (2002). "A cyberspace Lenin: why not?" International
>Socialism Journal. 95.
>http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj95/zizek.htm
>
>Issue 95 of INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM JOURNAL Published Summer 2002
>Copyright =A9 International Socialism
>A cyberspace Lenin: why not?
>SLAVOJ ZIZEK
>http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj95/zizek.htm
>
>Excerpts:
>
>...
>However, does capitalism really provide the 'natural' frame of the
>relations of production for the digital universe? Is there not also an
>explosive potential for capitalism itself in the world wide web? Is not
>the lesson of the Microsoft monopoly precisely the Leninist one: instead
>of fighting its monopoly through the state apparatus (recall the
>court-ordered split of the Microsoft corporation), would it not be more
>'logical' just to socialise it, rendering it freely accessible? Today one
>is thus tempted to paraphrase Lenin's well-known motto, 'Socialism =3D
>electrification + the power of the soviets': 'Socialism =3D free access to
>internet + the power of the soviets.'
>
>...
>The key antagonism of the so called new (digital) industries is thus: how
>to maintain the form of (private) property, within which only the logic of
>profit can be maintained (see also the Napster problem, the free
>circulation of music)? And do the legal complications in biogenetics not
>point in the same direction? The key element of the new international
>trade agreements is the 'protection of intellectual property'--whenever,
>in a merger, a big Western company takes over a Third World company, the
>first thing they do is close down the research department. Phenomena
>emerge here which involve the notion of property in extraordinary
>dialectical paradoxes: in India, local communities suddenly discover that
>medical practices and materials they have been using for centuries are now
>owned by American companies, so they should be bought from them; with the
>biogenetic companies patenting genes, we are all discovering that parts of
>ourselves, our genetic components, are already copyrighted, owned by
>others.
>
>Full text:
>Zizek, Slavoj (2002). "A cyberspace Lenin: why not?" International
>Socialism Journal. 95.
>http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj95/zizek.htm
>
>Vorw=E4rts
>
>--- Lars Aronsson <lars@aronsson.se> wrote:
> > Zapopan Martin Muela-Meza wrote:
> > > Zizek, Slavoj (2002). "A cyberspace Lenin: why not?" International
> > > Socialism Journal. 95.
> >
> > Lenin was a mass murderer, just like his follower Stalin. These
> > people have nothing in common with anything this list is about.
> >
> >
> > --
> >   Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
> >   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
> >
>
>--------------------------- v ---------------------------
>"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of humankind. Our=
=20
>schoolbooks glorify war and hide its horrors. They inculcate hatred in the=
=20
>veins of children.=94
>--------------------------- v ---------------------------
>"El nacionalismo es una enfermedad infantil. Es el sarampion de la=20
>humanidad. Nuestros libros escolares glorifican la guerra y esconden sus=20
>horrores. Ellos inculcan odio en las venas de los ni=F1os."
>
>-- Albert Einstein. In: Sagan, Carl (1980). Broca's Brain: Reflections on=
=20
>the Romance of Science: El cerebro de Broca: Reflexiones sobre el romance=
=20
>de la ciencia. New York: Ballantine Books, p. 37.
>
>
>
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