[iDC] Play, Labour & Herbert Marcuse

Mon Oct 12 17:33:38 UTC 2009

Dear Margaret,

I agree with you that humans should not be analytically separated from 
animals. I think we can maybe agree on a middle ground between 
conflationism and separation with the help of Hegel's notion of 
Aufhebung (sublation) in the threefold sense of maintaining, lifting up, 
and eliminating, which would then mean that humans are sublated animals. 
On the one hand they have new qualities that are different from animal 
qualities (such as self-consciousness, morality, anticipative thinking 
and action, etc), on the other hand they share certain qualities with 
animals and are so connected.

We have been talking about drives and instincts on the list, and you 
particularly mentioned erotics. Maybe the drive for sexuality, erotics, 
and play is an animal instinct of humans. An instinct that has been 
preserved in the transition from animal to human, but that at the same 
time takes on a new quality in humans in the form of the necessary 
suppression of the play and sex drive to a certain extent so that, as 
Freud says, human culture becomes possible.

I have not read Haraway's new book, can you maybe give a short summary 
on the central thesis/message of the book and how it might be related to 
the topics we are discussing here?

Thank you.

Best wishes, Christian

Margaret Morse schrieb:
> Dear Christian,
> Your mental association of any degree of comparison between animals 
> and humans with Nazis who compared humans to vermin explains your 
> reluctance.  Consider this:  humans are animals in fact and we share 
> our sociality (and predation) with many animal species.  Why do we 
> need to make a total and absolute difference in what amounts to 
> denial?   I see your point about the Haraway cyborg being one figure, 
> although an historically and specifically determined one.  It is a 
> both/and, neither/nor figure that one encounters in liminal periods.  
> It is one in number but not in any other way.  Condensations are dream 
> thinking to be sure; they allow us to say things unspeakable 
> otherwise.  A life without condensations would be a life without 
> dreams, poetry or jokes.  If you have read it, what do you think of 
> Haraways recent book _When Species Meet_?
>
> I am thinking also of honorable comparisons of humans and animals.  I 
> can't forget the illustration from a book related in form and function 
> to The Book of Kells at Trinity in Dublin during ISEA2009.  There was 
> a delightful mouse who was holding two things together, one perhaps a 
> communion wafer?  That was a big issue back in the Dark Ages--if a 
> mouse nibbles a communion wafer is that mouse part of the Christian 
> community?
>
> Sorry I can't address your points more deeply;  your views are deeply 
> felt and I understand them, though I don't share them.  Thanks for 
> answering my question.
>
> I found the comment about FaceBook tricking "friends" into drawing 
> other friends into Farmville interesting from an erotics point of view.
>
> Best,
> Margaret
>
> On Oct 11, 2009, at 7:36 PM, Christian Fuchs wrote:
>
>> Dear Margaret and Eva,
>>
>> Some people have pointed out to me that I mixed up Farm Life with the
>> game in question, Farmville, a very popular Facebook game application.
>> Thanks for that, obviously I am not a computer game expert. Farmville is
>> free to use, does not cost money, and has no advertising, profit is
>> generated by selling virtual farm coins and virtual farm cash to users
>> and by trying to trick ever more Facebook friends into the game as
>> virtual commodity buyers. So the accumulation strategy is related to the
>> one of Second Life, you buy virtual money as commodity that enables you
>> to play the game and produces actual money profit for a corporation. The
>> players here are not surplus value producers, they are consumers and
>> realize surplus value that is produced by the game designers. However,
>> you could say that the labour of tricking users to invite their Facebook
>> friends to use the game significantly contributes to surplus value
>> production.
>>
>> I think that comparisons between bees or birds or any other animals to
>> humans in a metaphorical or non-metaphorical way should be avoided and
>> that they are dangerous too. Hitler and the Nazis did it by comparing
>> Jews to rats, insects, etc, so the danger of such comparisons is to end
>> up in biologism or eco-fascism. biologism is a logically necessary
>> element of fascist ideology. The danger is one of reductionism, to
>> reduce humans and to deny their specifity. So what I am arguing for is a
>> socialist humanism, humanist socialism.
>>
>> Of course gender should be mentioned as very important aspect of
>> Haraway's cyborg concept, based on which she has contributed to
>> cyberfeminism. The problem that I have with Haraway's cyborg concept is
>> that she in my view tends to collapse differences into unity, which
>> risks degrading humans to the same analytical and logical level as
>> machines, animals, etc (as is done in actor network theory). humans are
>> not machines, humans are no animals, they are primarily different from
>> such systems, and secondarily connected to technical and material
>> systems. Haraway's cyborg-concept is in my view undialectical, that is
>> the problem that I have with it, it is a form of conflationism, what I
>> am missing in the Cyborg-Manifesto is the logical figure of unity in
>> diversity. In terms of the gender aspect of the cyborg, I think much was
>> said on that topic in the controversy between Norman O'Brown and Herbert
>> Marcuse in 1967 following the publication of O'Brown's book "Love's
>> Body" and I found Marcuse's position quite reasonable. Haraway would
>> more take the position of O'Brown in that discussion. O'Brown did not
>> speak of cyborgs, but it is basically what he meant.
>>
>> Best,
>> Christian
>>
>> -- 
>> - - -
>> Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Fuchs
>> Associate Professor
>> Unified Theory of Information Research Group
>> ICT&S Center
>> University of Salzburg
>> Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18
>> 5020 Salzburg
>> Austria
>> christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at
>> Phone +43 662 8044 4823
>> Personal Website: http://fuchs.uti.at
>> Research Group: http;//www.uti.at
>> Editor of
>> tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation | Open Access 
>> Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society
>> http://www.triple-c.at
>> Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the 
>> Information Age. New York: Routledge.
>> http://fuchs.uti.at/?page_id=40
>>
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>
> Margaret Morse
> memorse at comcast.net
>
> Meierottostrasse 4
> 10719 Berlin
> +49 (0)30 505625242
> Handy/cell 0171 99 00008
>
>

-- 
- - -
Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Fuchs
Associate Professor
Unified Theory of Information Research Group
ICT&S Center
University of Salzburg
Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18
5020 Salzburg
Austria
christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at
Phone +43 662 8044 4823
Personal Website: http://fuchs.uti.at
Research Group: http;//www.uti.at
Editor of 
tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation | Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society
http://www.triple-c.at
Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge. 
http://fuchs.uti.at/?page_id=40