I've been formulating an idea in my head for the past couple days, and I suppose there's no better time to let it air out online than at 1:45 in the morning.
Andrejevic introduced us to the idea of the digital enclosure and drew a parallel to the land enclosure movement forming the basis of capitalism. Just as the land enclosure movement (the creation of private property) led to the development of distinct classes, so the digital enclosure leads to a distinct separation between prosumers and the state/corporations.
Todd McGowan, in The End of Dissatisfaction?, posits another monumental transformation of society. It is, he says, "the transformation from a society founded on the prohibition of enjoyment (and thus the dissatisfaction of its subjects) to a society that commands enjoyment or jouissance (in which there seems to be no requisite dissatisfaction)." One of the authors (I'm not sure which, at the moment) in Rebooting Democracy wrote that millenials have an individual sense of self-purpose, but no sense of collective duty. What if, on the other hand, "the only duty seems to consist in enjoying oneself as much as possible.?" McGowan believes this is true, and it begs the question: is the only maxim that we can will to be universally applicable, simply put: enjoy yourself? If, as Kant believed, morality rests on the categorical imperative, what does that say about the morality of the millenials?
Enjoyment is particularly individual. If the digital enclosure creates a new kind of class antagonisms, and the latest generation is too involved in enjoying themselves to notice, what does that mean for the future of civil society?
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3 comments:
yesterday i was reading about millennials on the internet and i came across similar ideas to what you posted about. I constantly wonder what the future holds for most of us. I fear for us sometimes because I don't think we have a sense of collective duty. I know kids will argue with me on that, but personally, I think we confuse our sense of self purpose with our sense of collective duty. I don't know about you, but I experience this feeling of self purpose, i just don't know what to do with it...I don't know how to take the next step. I get stuck.
-adrienne
This is an important question. Lacan says that the ultimate ethical position is not to cede one's desire. Figuring out what that means, in different settings, is a matter of debate (in Lacanian circles). If we are not in a society of prohibition, then presumably we have no desire to cede. And this would make ethics impossible for millennials.
I guess the enclosure is getting smaller and smaller. In the way that Andrejevic talks about shells, and in Rebooting (I think) there is the mention of the social elites also hiding out.
Rather than the enclosures separating us by class, by land-owning vs. not, the current Millenial enclosure is making us an "Enclosure of One." We remain in our contained units. We are the Army. We are the force to do good. It's not a collective imperative or urge.
Am I encouraging this by being a grumpy group worker?
I feel that a collective can only slow me down, is that the result?
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