wrythings

I’ve meant to come back to this for some time. Adventitiously, the Upward Spiral has been coming up a lot lately. This piece is a kind of parable on Life and Ecology.

The Prisoner - a British series circa 1968 - described as Kafkaesque. I saw a few episodes in reruns on PBS (I believe) when I was a teenager. The socio-psychological political parable appealed greatly to me (as it continues to) and I’ve wanted to have the opportunity to run through the full 17 episodes some time.

The lead character, Number 6 (played by Patrick McGoohan - who was born where I grew up!), a former agent of high rank in the field of intelligence/espionage resigned his post with no explanation who has found himself prisoner in a resort town known as “the village”. The village is an orderly place where people once entrusted with secrets of state or otherwise engaged in intelligence work are kept.

I won’t give a full background of the series, but I think episode 4 (entitled Free for All) topical in this primary season.

This episode opens for us questions around our fears, doubts, suspicion and paranoia regarding elections and the governance system. I’ll touch lightly on a few points, and perhaps return to the topic at a later date.

Our protagonist (Number 6) perpetually contends with the Order and conformity of the Village, his attention reasonably centered upon the incumbent of Number 2, a position with high turn-over. the visible and active figure-head.

Number 2 implies a Number One. Hierarchy is important to the image of order promulgated by the Village and the powers behind it. It’s more than hierarchy… it’s the idea of a class that is out of reach (whether single or a class of many). Number One is buffered, inaccessible, never seen. Only Number Two is seen to interact with Number One.

Number 2 is “democratically elected”, or so he asserts. But the people are so much in favor of the incumbency and the order, no one stands against him in election. That is an unsatisfactory situation. We need the ritual of the election. Dare we say, we need the distraction? The myth of election and democratic process. I’m putting forward these ideas as an expression of the ideology of hierarchic power imposed in the village as made evident by Number 2

Number 6 is recruited to stand for election… and there are many aspects of the episode we could delve into: why Number 6 goes along with the charade, why he proceeds in demogogic manner, the ambivalence of the order, it’s hierarchic concentration of power and the complacency of the many.

What is real power? What is power in our society? Are we more wed to the symbolic aspects of the democratic process than to the substance? What percent voter turn-out do the “free” nations have? Do we have faith in the mechanisms we have in place: voting machines, election certification, electoral college, campaign finance? Are we concerned with a true and wide (fair) enfranchisement of the populace? (Of all peoples?) What do we think of the rights, judgment and behavior of our fellows? Will we make the changes that make sense? Will we (and the media) be attentive to what merits attention? What aspects of social control do we enforce, actively and passively, to the detriment of our interests or values?

Be seeing you.

Josh Breitbart blogs a warning to all who seek digital inclusion or more (perhaps excellence) for their community, here: Horizontal vs. Hub-and-Spoke Relations, or The Emperor has no Invisible Thread. The bottom line: unless your city has character and backbone, and cares for the people, the people will be ill-served by the network they get.

There are no tangents in holistic approaches to technology and community, so please bear with me as I tug that thread metaphor in another important direction.

Robust networks/redundancy; generosity/capacity.

Consider this image (evoked by Breitbart’s commentary on the as-yet missing (but promised) invisible thread): Sidney J. Mussberger (the character in the Hudsucker Proxy played by Paul Newman) dangling upside down at the ledge of a skyscraper reflecting on the need for the robust redundancy of a double stitch as the seam at his waist begins to give.

Mussberger (Newman) reflects on his (stingy/cynical) scoffing at his tailor’s suggestion of the double-stitch for his hand-tailored trousers. When a single-stitch will do, why spend more? He regards the tailor’s suggestion as an unnecessary expense and worse, an attempt to rip him off.

(Warning: Minor spoiler!) Mussberger’s pants don’t give way at the moment he needs them to hold together most. The Tailor generously gave him the double-stitch anyway.

What lessons to draw?

Along with tying our communities together in many horizontal relations (Neff and Philadephia’s “invisible thread”), and assurances of digital inclusion and economic development benefits there are public safety needs related to these networks. (We should explore how horizontality in planning and design would strengthen those purposes.) Robust, redundant networks are critical to public safety. Or, consider the demonstrated value of a small cadre of community wireless networkers post Katrina. (The lesson there being, volunteer knowledge and technical capacity, and the freedom to act in the deployment of networks is just as critical.)

We are being promised a lot of things in the selling of broadband and wireless networks. We had best make sure we are getting what we pay for and that we are prepared to pay enough. I wouldn’t bank my hopes on the generosity of the network vendors. Get what you need and get it in writing, then get it verified. You don’t want to be left in regret or wonder when hanging by a thread.

I’m not ready to make a full statement of my vision of The World We Want and what we need to do to get there. But I do see certain elements of it that I’d like to share. I can share a fair number of them by directing others to a film: The Upward Spiral. In the World We Want we’d all understand the experience of Abard Ofgaia.

I thank my friends who, so focused on currencies and flows, offered me the gift of connecting to some memory of self in advancing this film and this subject. So many of the images reminded me of my time learning in retreat with nature upriver of Rochester NY at Letchworth State Park.

As dancing animals we must go upstream to the headwaters of our more dangerous flows, to where we may have influence and through mindful action undertake small changes that lead oppositions into harmonies.

Robert Strange MacNamara , US Secretary of Defense in the Vietnam Era, is an interesting figure. In the documentary The Fog of War MacNamara’s insights and experiences cannot fail to impress. We should take to heart his perspectives on certainty, false-certitude and the general uncertainty that is the fog of war - von Clausewitz’ pithy phrase - in our continuing geo-political endeavors. Take a moment to review the lessons and insights listed in the wikipedia article.

i’ve a taste for the psychological in film, especially when there is willingness to explore the surreal and the absurd

how would you describe contemporary films of this sort?