Virtual reality is the sweet concentration camp of the future, where chains will not be needed

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

If we talk about the Capitalist System, then there is such a blurring, thinning of the edges, which is no longer simply associated with the decline of this system, with the crisis of capitalism, but with a specific feature that scientific and technological revolution and the introduction of computers give to our era. We are talking about disappearance of the edgebetween the real and the imaginary world.

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Famous French sociologist E. Moranonce expressed disagreement with those who reproach Marx for underestimating the power of ideas. The power of ideas, Moran believes, was highly valued by Marx; what he underestimated was the power of imagined reality, imaginary worlds. I think, on the whole, E. Moran is right. For instance, communismas an idea is one thing, as an imaginary reality is another. Nowadays, the imagined reality becomes practically - virtually, virtually - something real, genuine. Virtual reality, cyberspace of a person connected to a computer.

Virtual realitycyberspace is not just reality, in a sense it is superreality, a surreal world. In this sense, computers and video helmets complete what they started, but what the surrealists could not even imagine in the "long 20s". The surrealists are as much a forerunner of the scientific and technological revolution as the Bolsheviks with their high-tech revolution, the power-technical revolution. By the way, the Bolsheviks also created a surreal world.

The literary worlds of Tolkien and Joyce, “1001 Nights” and Balzac, Dumas and Galsworthy, Jules Verne and Kafka also demonstrate the power of imaginary reality. However, there is a huge difference between imagined reality and virtual reality. Between imaginary reality and physical reality there is edge, in the presence of which a person is aware of.

Being in imaginary reality, a person is passive, only his intellect and imagination are active, but not his body. In case of virreality, in which a person is already without quotes, an inversion occurs: the body is active, while the intellect is more passive. The individual dissolves in cyberspace, it is a real subject, and he, if he is a subject, is at best a virtual one. Virtual intelligence, emotions; real body.

Cyberspace acts as a means (and at the same time a social and extra-social space) alienation of man- antique slavery, on the contrary, the main thing is not the body, not material factors, but social and spiritual, the person as a whole. Perhaps this is the exploitative meaning and potential of the scientific and technological revolution, which creates instruments of non-capitalist (post-capitalist) forms of exploitation and oppression and at the same time, which is no less, and perhaps more important, unprecedented, hitherto unseen means of their social cultural disguise?

Such means, in principle, can create an invisible, anonymous authority, for one mention of the existence of which the death penalty is threatened - the situation described by S. Lem in "Eden". And what about "Eden" to us? Since 1572 in Russia the use of the word "oprichnina" was ordered to be beaten with a whip. There was no oprichnina. Forget it. In short, word and deed. The word hides the deed. In the case of virtual reality, it is not even a word, but an image. And not with a whip, but more effectively - through cyberspace.

Cyberspace, virreality perform in the aggregate, in their continuity, a whole complex of functions. This is entertainment, no gladiatorial fights are needed with it - you can become a gladiator, or even just a murderer, as well as a world chess champion, dinosaur, Bedouin - anyone; that's what virtual reality! With it, propaganda is not needed - all in one: a video helmet connected to a computer. And advertising is not required - cyberspace can present it in a condensed, super-profitable way.

In this sense, cyberspace is a triumph of technology and consumer technology. Consumption and leisure merge, it is not working time that is alienated from a person, but free time, and the very line between them is erased - as under communism. This is how Marx's dreams come true, on whose grave a video helmet should be hoisted.

Virrealitycan become the most beloved object of consumption, any freedom of choice of which (and in which) turns into dependence, moreover internal. Once, Marx wrote that the only space of a person is time, and the only real wealth of a person is free time, leisure, in which he realizes himself as a person.

The alienation of free time, thus, steals from a person the person himself, his main wealth, his time and space at the same time. And at the same time sharply enhances social control: the object of social control turns into a point of consumption - specific, to which the consumer is attached subtly but firmly, like Michelangelo's "Slave". The latter's hands are tied with a thin rope, almost a thread. But it is super strong, it is provided by internal slavery and deprivation. In such a situation, chains are not needed..

With viral reality, there is a pointillization of social control: each gets a personal “cap”. Virreality is the unity of social control and social therapy. She can create a feeling of complete happiness (which will undoubtedly spawn a cybercult). Reality virtualization is derealization of the world, i.e. the same effect that drugs provide. It is no coincidence that P. Virilio writes about electronic drug addiction and "electronics drug capitalism."

Becoming not only a means of consumption, but also a longed-for goal, virtual reality objectively displaces other goals and thus becomes a means of alienating a person's fundamental function - goal setting … Already communism has demonstrated a system of goal-setting alienation, but on an inadequate production basis for the fulfillment of this task.

Virreality solves the specified problem on a production basis, appealing not to fear, but to pleasure, not to a bright future, but to a bright present. That is why it is much more effective than, for example, communism (and maybe even TSA) in alienating goal-setting. It remains to rely only on the strength of the resistance of Western society, on its polysubjectivity, on the traditions and values of the era of the Great Capitalist Revolution, the Middle Ages and early Christianity, capable of withstanding encroachments on humans.

Although, of course, one should neither exaggerate excessively the strength of these traditions and values, nor forget about those tendencies in the development of bourgeois society itself in general and late capitalist society in particular, which work against these traditions and against humans, be it Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens occidentalis.

Of course, there is no need to exaggerate. But even without this, it is clear that cyberspace can become the most powerful social weapon the strong versus the weak in the late capitalist and post-capitalist eras. It is capable of concealing, disguising any crisis, any new system of domination, a new system of control. It itself is nothing more than a means of social control, which the controlled gladly accepts.

Virtual reality - this is a magnificent tunnel under the real world for the transition of the dominant groups of capitalism into the post-capitalist world - in the form of its new non-virtual, a real gentlemen … The masters of the new world, in which control is not imposed from the outside, as J. Orwell and E. Zamyatin wrote about it and as it was partly in the communist order, is interiorized as an "electronic drug" and, as it were, grows from within.

The very transition to the post-capitalist world can be virtually represented as the achievement of the final point of development, "End of history" (liberal, of course), the acquisition of a "new Arcadia"; living people are like “a generation that has reached the goal,” and the alarming ringing of the Bells of History is like the gently soothing sounds of the harpsichord. Sit and listen.

And the very transition to a new, less and less united, less universal and even more unegalitarian world can be virtually (“don’t fail!”) Presented as a movement towards a single global and reasonably arranged world, where differences between countries and classes are leveled, where aspiration reigns to justice.

The growth of particularism can be presented again from the point of view of justice - multiculturalism, the struggle against cultural imperialism. It is conscious and semi-conscious reality hoax, in which many groups are interested in trying to camouflage the restructuring of the Capitalist System into a different system, the world-economy into world-communication.

J. -K. Ryufen. In one of his books, he gives two maps of Africa - 1932 and 1991.

The first map depicted well-studied areas in black, not well-studied areas in gray, and unexplored areas in white. On the map of 1991, the black marks are the areas controlled by the state and the central government, the gray are the zones of insecurity, and the white are the "new terra incognita", that is. zones where it is better not to meddle, where guerrilla or inter-tribal wars have been going on for many years, where the situation is controlled by armed clans, etc.; zones that objectively dropped out of the world were detached from it.

So, there was more black paint in 1991, but white paint also increased significantly; white spots-32 merged into white arrays-91. And there is a difference: “not yet studied” in the first case and “not yet studied” in the second. The dejulvernization of Africa took place - and not only Africa.

There is no need to exaggerate, but it makes sense to soberly assess the situation and raise the question: are we not present at the next, third, "Closing the world" (more precisely, the worlds), similar to those that occurred in the IV and XIV centuries. n. e. - with the decline in one case of the Roman and Han, in the other - the Great Mongol empires?

The negative answer to this question is not at all obvious. Globalization, as already mentioned, may turn out to be virtual or, at least, not the only development trend, it is obvious and diametrically opposite. The informational (world-communication) unity of the world can turn out to be fictitious or, at least, selective, partial, and has a downside - separation. The latter may have a variety of reasons: political, environmental, financial (both wealth and especially poverty), epidemic (pandemic).

The destructive, separative capabilities of a person increase along with the constructive, unifying capabilities, equal to them - at least. Peace-communication is not so much a single world system as net unevenly and loosely connected enclaves, points of the North in the earth (and, who knows, near-earth) space.

The term “world-communication” and the associated approach to the current reality allows, according to A. Matlyar, “to understand the logics of mondialization without mystifying them. In contrast to the globalist and egalitarian picture of the planet presented to us, these logics remind us: the mondialization of economies and communication systems is inextricably linked with creating new forms of inequality between different countries or regions and between different social groups. In other words, it is a source of new exceptions (from the process of owning public goods. - A. F.).

To be convinced of this, it is enough to look at the principles that underlie the creation of special markets or regional free trade zones, these mediating regional spaces between the world space and the space of the nation-state. Globalization is coupled with fragmentation and segmentation. In this are two faces of the same reality, which is in the process of disintegration and a new connection.

The 80s were a time of striving for a unifying and unifying global culture, which were carried by large transnational companies that expelled "cultural universes" in order to ensure the distribution of their goods, services and networks in the world market, but they (80s) also became a time of revenge of unique, one-of-a-kind cultures. " Cultures opposed to a universal culture and its values and corresponding to certain cultural (ethno-) spatial loci, zones or even points.

The world ("global") quality of "world-communication" is not so much real as virtual. The point-like, pointillist world, strictly speaking, does not need a single world system. Any point in this world can be virtually represented as a "world system" - it is enough to fall into the "black hole" of cyberspace.

The universe or a point is irrelevant. Relevant is that entire groups can create their world on the basis of this irrelevance, exploiting it and with its help exploiting (but in a different sense) others, including Freudianism, genetic engineering and much more, which we have no idea about.

And what opportunities does the displacement of social conflicts into cyberspace provide for the new masters? Creatures from the album "Man after Man" by D. Dixon and situations like Freddy Krueger chasing and killing his victims in their dreams may turn out to be flowers, which, however, should not frighten (to be scared - late and senseless), nor deprive resistance.

Another question: how long will it take people to work out means of resistanceadequate to post-capitalist forms of oppression and exploitation. We need to think about this now.

In previous epochs, first a system of exploitation and its masters arose, then oppressed-exploited groups were formed, then, with an even greater delay - forms of struggle adequate to the new system and resistance to it.

The current eraapparently different. Its informational character allows (theoretically, at least) new forms of resistance and struggle to arise, in fact, simultaneously with new forms of alienation. The point is “small”: to turn a theoretical opportunity into a practical one; the social struggle of the late capitalist era for the "trump cards of history" of the post-capitalist world - in opposition to the emerging masters of this world; so to speak, to work in advance.

It is clear that such a task is easier to proclaim than to accomplish. First, the will to fight and clarity of thought are not the most common qualities. Second, the social conflicts of the late capitalist era obscure, obscure, or simply make invisible the conflict points, contours and objects of struggle of the future era; conflicts of the latter, as it were rolled up and hidden in the conflicts of today and it is difficult to separate one from the other. Thirdly, which further complicates the situation, the potential masters of the post-capitalist (and post-communist) world are now really struggling with the economic, socio-political and ideological forms of the Capitalist System,opposing it and its characteristic exploitation, oppression, alienation.

In such situation resistance must become a special art. Moreover, it should become a science, or rather, rely on a special science of resistance (to any forms of domination), which has yet to be developed - as well as the corresponding ideological and moral basis.

It is in the excitement of the struggle of transitional eras, directed against the old ruling and exploiting groups, that new forms of domination and its personifiers are forged. A society that has risen to fight, the working people themselves put forward and forge them - the law of self-deception. The era of revolutions is the era of the creation of new masters, the transformation of Tibuls and prosperos into new fat men. Or, at least, preparing a springboard for such a transformation, setting a new social table.

In the struggle of revolutionary epochs, everyone remembers the bad old and dreams of the good new, forgetting that good social order - neither new nor old - can not be; there are - bearable and unbearable; fighting the old and not thinking about fighting the new in the new era - why, it will be a wonderful new world. It was at the moment of the struggle with the masters of the old world, renouncing them and this world, that people put new exploiters on their necks - like Sinbad the sailor, who naively turned his neck up to the old "sheikh of the sea", whom he then carried on himself for a long time.

The main task facing a person in revolutionary, "transitional", dislocated epochs - don't be fooled and, more importantly, not to deceive oneself, to avoid the temptation of self-deception, fueled and reinforced by the unwillingness to bear responsibility, to make an independent choice and to participate in a long psychologically exhausting struggle.

They say that generals are always preparing for the last war. The situation is similar in revolutions: people are at war with the past, they are ready for the past enemy, but not ready, they do not see a new subject with a whip, or in a bowler hat, or in a jacket, or in a sweater.

Another question is that the task of determining The coming lord difficult in itself, and that, even after calculating it, it is not easy to turn theoretical knowledge into practice in the course of social struggle - after all, in this case you find yourself between two fires. But, on the other hand, the “fires” can be directed at each other, as capital has done over the past 200-250 years. This is the situation where practice really turns out to be the criterion of truth.

The experience of the past shows that in any social struggle it is necessary to soberly look not only backward, but also forward, proactively developing intellectual and powerful “antibodies” that can initially restrict new owners. The art of resisting not only the past, but also the future - this is what must be polished and practiced. And correspondingly, knowledgerequired for these purposes.

This knowledge should be developed and improved quietly, but steadily - as yogis and kung fu masters honed their skills in monasteries during the long history of their civilizations. Postcapitalism is likely to be a long, "asymptomatic" period, so there will be time. And you need to start with a new type of understanding and knowledge. Knowledge is not just power, but power.

In an era when information factors of production - knowledge, science, ideas, images - become decisive and alienated from a person (and together with them he as a whole - it cannot be otherwise), when they become a field of real social struggle, the latter (as well as domination and resistance) cannot but have a scientific and informational basis; moreover, this basis is becoming objectively the most important area of knowledge, which the new dominant groups will have to secret, taboo, virtualize. And for this - hide reality, mystify, virtualize it.

Here resistance is the battle for a realistic view of reality … But this is the most general ("methodological") characteristic.

The pointed, pointillistic nature of the coming era suggests that there can be no mass, zonal, and in this sense a universal “science of resistance” suitable for everyone. It can be different at each point. Its universality will have a different character: not a science of resistance to whom (feudal lord, capitalist, nomenklatura), and, above all, whom.

If the main anti-exploitative task of a person becomes to remain a person in general, then the object of resistance is of much less importance than the subject. The new "science of resistance" must and can only be subjective, everything else - methods, techniques, means - is relative. In this sense, we seem to be returning to the origins of Christianity, already on a rational basis: "Jesus, give us your hand, help us in the silent struggle."

Of course resistance science is not guaranteed from the transformation into a science of a new domination, a kind of "social procrustic", as happened, for example, with Marxism at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. But Marxism - that was the era - was an object-oriented, object-centered "science of resistance", hence the metamorphosis.

The subjective nature of the new "science of resistance", the new "Resisting knowledge" is largely immune against rebirth. However, all this is determined by the logic of the social struggle itself. Therefore, in the current conflicts, it is necessary to have double, stereoscopic and infrared (in addition to normal) vision, double vision - day and night (and its devices).

It is necessary to carefully look at all the agents of the current world and its conflicts, thinking about the future. Today's friend or neutral can be tomorrow's enemy - and vice versa. Today's seemingly harmless dog may turn into Sharikov tomorrow. So, maybe it's better to shoot him right away, or at least not to feed him? Otherwise it will come out like with the "Leninist Guard":

And piously believing in the truth of the Class, They, not knowing the truths of others, We gave ourselves to sniff the meat

To those dogs that later tore them up.

(N. Korzhavin)

Psam-people, dog-headed Sharikov, who tore apart the Shvonders and, unfortunately, many others along the way.

Of course, a double, cross vision, the development of actions based on it (not to mention implementation) is an extremely difficult task, requiring the creation of a fundamentally new form of organization of knowledge, the methods of which will allow dissecting the current reality and opening up seeds, embryos and forms of the future in them. interaction, what the day ahead has in store for us. Otherwise, it's a disaster.

In any case, it is important to understand: in modern social conflicts, due to the specifics of the era, are woven, are already present, most often in a hidden, distorted, impure form of confrontation forms of the coming “strange world”. They manifest themselves in different ways and in different spheres: in the growth of crime and ethnic cleansing, in the growth of the importance of irrational knowledge and the retreat of universalism, in new scientific concepts and forms of leisure, and finally, in the arrival of the virtual reality that was discussed. By the way, the possibility of virtuality was predicted several decades ago.

Art. Lem in "The Sum of Technologies" reflected on some phantomatic machines, on phantomatics, allowing a person to "sort of" feel like a shark or a crocodile, a visitor to a brothel or a hero on the battlefield. He talked about the transmission of sensations, cerebromatics and other things that at the end of the 60s seemed like science fiction.

30 years later, the tale has come true. Do you want to feel like you are sawing with a neighbor's chainsaw? Receive a video helmet. Sex through a computer? And they already write about it - read the magazine "Penthouse". So much for the transfer of sensations.

With cyberspace, property is not needed in the old sense of the word. Other controls here: cyberspace alienates information from a person, spiritual factors of production. Cyberspace is a sweet concentration camp, vastly more effective than the communist and Nazi camps. That's when Jerzy Lec's aphorism comes true in production: “In troubled times, do not withdraw into yourself - it’s the easiest place to find you”.

The man of the scientific and technological revolution epoch - Homo informaticus - for the most part, sociologically, i.e. according to the logic of the emerging society, there should be Homo disinformaticus. It is only from a straightforward enlightenment view that it seems that in the era of the dominance of information technology, spiritual factors of production, everyone should be clever and creative. Quite the opposite!

If the spiritual factors of production, information are decisive, then this means that the dominant groups will alienate them, it is on them that they will establish their monopoly, depriving these factors of the bulk of the population.

The proletarian had no capital, the tenant had no land, the slave had no body of his own. Homo (dis) informaticus should not have a real picture of the world, a rational view of the world; this homo doesn't have to be spiritual. At the logical conclusion - he doesn't have to be Homo … And he shouldn't know, think. To know, to think is to be.