post-it note, 4/16

Derrida said that to know the name of something is to give you power over that thing, just as Foucault said that knowing something gives pleasure. On either side of the token, knowing is good. Information is good, if it is true. But knowing something, whether true or false is good. Before CMC came into my life, I saw the media and Internet as great things. Each taught me things. Empowered me. Now I see them as lies. Not empowering, but controlling, subjective and manipulating. It is ironic that the general, unknowing public sees knowing any bit of random information as good.

Another thing that I have noticed is that Internet is always squiggly-underlined in word as incorrect if not capitalized. Weren’t we taught that important things are to be capitalized? The internet is as important to our society as food. I feel uneasy when I do not have the inernet, lowercase or capitalized. I feel out of the human information loop. As if my being is not accounted for if I am not logged into some networking site or e-mail service. Is our worth also measured in communication outlets, ways to contact other people without physically being around them? I am unsure where the attitudes of people came from that being around people is lower social status than communicating with people not in the same room, state or country. But I do think that business-centered mindsets created a certain coolness with cell phones, as if the urgency of business could not wait until that man in the suit walked from Chipotle back to his desk. He had to maximize his time while walking back to his desk. My friends cannot wait either. They must be contacted while I am getting dressed in the morning. While I am driving. While I am in the shower (what else are Zip-lock bags for?). Time for anything other than communication is unimportant. But this communication leads to unimportant information being passed around because so much time is dedicated to the sport. When will knowing something require that it is verifiable and a fact of substance? Then again, who decides what is important in the world is unknown to me. Possibly post-modern communication is allowing the human race to see into the brains of the truly stupid and ignorant. This seems the best answer I have come up with thus far.