Monday, January 08, 2007

build your ruin

Gianni Vattimo argues that nihilism is not the absence of meaning but a recognition of the plurality of meanings;

Justin Clements writes that "nihilism is not just another epoch amongst a succession of others: it is the finally accomplished form of a disaster that occurred long ago."[27] In the media context this would be the moment in which mass media lost their claim on the Truth and could no longer operate as authority.

How to overcome meaninglessness without falling back into centralized meaning structures is the challenge that the blogging millions pose.link via
Geert tosses off explanations for the energy of blogging with ease. And balances the gain with the loss; the individual, the mass, the massified individual, the solipsistic mass.
Can we talk of a "fear of media freedom"? It is too easy to say that there is freedom of speech and that blogs materialize this right. The aim of radical freedom, one could argue, is to create autonomy and overcome the dominance of media corporations and state control and to no longer be bothered by "their" channels. Most blogs show an opposite tendency. The obsession with news factoids borders to the extreme. Instead of selective appropriation, there is over-identification and straight out addiction, in particular to the speed of real-time reporting.
Blogging is wind perforated by arid air. Some day it could be more. It could be poker. It could be real estate. It could count.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Questionably appurtenant to your thread might be Ford's fight back (or 'move back') from the ruins at http://www.ftrain.com/moving-backwards.html.

1/09/2007 3:54 PM  
Blogger fpaynter said...

"Blogging is wind, perforated by arid air..." YES! And for my start-up entry to the wonderful market that is Blog 2.0, I have captured a product I call "textual mercaptan." Spray a little on your blog and people will think you're from New Jersey.

Excuse me now, must run. Off to design a logo and kick off the comment spam campaign.

1/10/2007 8:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There are worse things than not being from New Jersey, Frank. But your effort will not go unexagiminated.

1/10/2007 10:01 PM  

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