Blurred.

Last week’s discussion about ‘blurring’ made me think about my report on Cyberpunk and Postmodernity when I took up Science Fiction last 2005. The concept of ‘blurring’ is, I believe, brought about by the Internet – a world entirely on its own, decentralized, without physical boundaries, where basic reality becomes a contrived reality. In my understanding, ‘blurring’ is Postmodernity exemplified.

Here are some interesting points about Postmodernity taken from an Internet journal (I’m sorry I forgot the URL L ) that I’d like to share.

- As with the birth of the modern, the birth of the postmodern represents a time in which an old social order is passing away and a new one emerging. This change is revolutionizing every aspect of social life from technology to the arts, economics, political theories, human perception, ways we relate to one another as well as the individual, family and community.

- The computer seems to annihilate time. Information is available in an instant, a nanosecond. There seems to be today, much more than in the past, a sense of the immediate. Studies show that young people who spend a lot of time with video games do not develop a sense of the past and the future as those in the past did. The individual as suggested earlier is being seen not as an integrated self which has been created by his past experiences but as the result of what ever experience is available at the moment. There is the loss of center or logocentrism as it was known in Classical civilization. Terry Eagleton describes the postmodern self as: ...a dispersed, decentered network of libidinal attachments, emptied of ethical substance and psychical inferiority, the ephemeral function of this or that act of consumption, media experience, social relationship, trend or fashion. (Eagleton,p.71)

- If during the industrial revolution there is inequality between the ‘haves’ and ‘have- nots’, this post-industrial society has seen growth in global and national inequality between those who are information rich and those who are information poor (digital literacy divide). This information based economy results in the globalization of the economy and global economic interdependence. This in turn results in changes in the shape of the urban zone where the concentric zone sites of the industrial age are decaying to the decentralized multi-nuclei city of today. An employee may work whenever and wherever so long as he has a computer and an Internet connection. “Distance learning” or “virtual university” making it’s appearance on the educational scene. [In some of my subjects, we post blog entries (like this one J) instead of submitting ‘papers’].

- [Now for the disturbing truth] The phenomenon of decentralization has some interesting implications for the self or ego-centrality, also a product of modernity. The postmodern individual is seen as being seen no longer as an integrated whole ego, but more in terms of a multiplicity with no essential being.

Conceptions are changing. How one perceives time, space, and his relations with other is slowly becoming ‘blurred’.

Hymn to Isis

For I am the first and the last
I am the venerated and the despised
I am the prostitute and the saint
I am the wife and the virgin
I am the mother and the daughter
I am the arms of my mother
I am barren and my children are many
I am the married woman and the spinster
I am the woman who give birth and she who never procreated
I am the consolation for the pain of birth
I am the wife and the husband
And it was my man who created me
I am the mother of my father
I am the sister of my husband
And he is my rejected son
Always respect me
For I am the shameful and the magnificent one.

Third or fourth century BC, discovered in Nag Hammadi

On Digital Literacy

Digital literacy: Ability to read and write digitally in order to 'access the Internet; find, manage and edit digital information; join in communications; and otherwise engage with an online information and communications network...' (Blackall, L 2005)

I skimmed through the Job Market section of PDI. Common denominator: Must.be. computer.literate. (I believe computer literacy and digital literacy are pretty much the same in terms of accessing digitally interpreted, stored, and retrieved information). It’s not enough that you know how do use MS Word; in most ads, knowledge about MS Office applications is a requirement. It’s not enough that you can express yourself in English fluently; you should understand computer lingo as well. Some companies were forced to implement ‘early retirement’ to welcome the new breed of the computer literate workforce. Today, whoever knows how to operate and use computer programs and the Internet have better chances of landing a high paying job, are better decision-makers (as they know how to access and manipulate digital information) and therefore have better chances of getting promoted.

Questions. The only thing that can stop such inequality (and this is something that’s been written in history as well) is access. The question is, is it feasible? Is it possible for every household to have a computer? Is it possible for every member of the household to be computer literate? How wide would the gap be (between the ‘know-hows’ and the ‘no-know’) before every single person in the Philippines becomes ‘digitally’ literate?

Considerations. Consider our level of English competency. Then consider how almost every instruction manual, guidelines, and even Internet resources in using digital technology (not limited to computers) is written in English. What medium of instruction do teachers use in teaching basic I.T. and computer concepts, jargons, processes? What language is used in computer textbooks? To combat inequality with digital literacy, it is essential that we have a mastery of the English language- also the universal language used in explaining and interpreting digital information.

In the name of convenience and security?

I was leafing through the pages of the June 2007 issue of Marie Claire Philippines and I came across an article entitled, " Is this the Future of Money?" by Bjoern Goethicker. The article was about Verichip, a microchip-cum-credit card injected on the surface of the skin. The 1.2mm by 12mm glass stores information about the person's age, gender, status, credit balance and such. The Baja Beach Club International in Spain has been the first club to employ this technology for cashless payments. They use the technology for their VIPs.

According to the article, the Netherlands, UK, US and Belgium are currently introducing this technology into their day-to-day routines.

All for convenience? Security?

I do see the reason behind developing such systems. But as with any type of technology, there are loopholes that may be used against us. I'm not just comfortable with the fact that technology is slowly becoming an essential tool for humans to survive. Now it is slowly, literally, becoming a part of the body.

I remember the movie the 'The Matrix', the classic 2D movie 'Ghost in the Shell' and my research about the premises behind the movie - We're slowly moving towards the age when it will be quite difficult to draw the line between what is 'natural' and what isn't; what defines a human being and what does not.

The article ends with "The door has been opened and the future is on its way..." Somehow, that statement made me feel like there's nothing we can do about it....