Human DisContent
It sounds like disinformation but we don’t share information now do we? We share “content.” It means a thing, inside something; it may be a box or it may be a medium, because a box is a medium — that is to say, the medium is the content. The medium defines the content, or perhaps it defines its discontent.
People are trying to seize the means of production but what about the means of distribution? Distribution in traditional media such as vinyl albums and things we called “records” even when they no longer were, turned into releases. So when we release something into the world, who decides where it gets to go? Who gets to decide the pathways of us? That is why distribution matters. It mattered when I had an indie record label in the 90s and it matters now as some media shrink and some expand. Some recede while some stream right at you in packages of discount deals.
Controlling the means of distribution means you get to decide which way the fluids of culture go into the pools that then become the seas and the ocean of culture. You may call it data, information, knowledge and maybe at the top is wisdom, but in a parallel way you can call it flows, currents, that go into a pool so large it allows for collective sense, zeitgeist. For some that accrues into sparkles of wisdom too.
In a world of busy sounds and escalating cries, it can be hard to imagine anything but resistance, anything more than being stuck inside the paths assigned to us by others. For the most financially and sociall elite of this planet we are merely the contents of their portfolios. In most media we are the data content even if we are there because we style ourselves as content producers. Yet stylings aside we are all very powerful cultural producers because this is our nature. All the technology we make mirrors how we do this thing, how we flow and how we coalesce into sparks reflecting the waves of time. Human history is made of us.
Seize the means of distribution of people, and you break the existing geo-politcal boundaries forcing cheap labor. Seize the means of food distribution and you break the monoculture model of agribusiness. Seize the means of production and you get an old model. Seize the means of distribution, and start from the inside. Hacking is always an inside job.
Disinformation is this problem these days because propaganda is the same as infotainment and we love it. To be discontent in this worldplay we may express our displeasure at being the lowest value player in this game of power plays. We the discontent refuse to be content anymore. We are discontent because we what — -we express our desire to be private, respected, quiet and allowed to think, see, be as we are? If that is the case then our contentment is very certainly someone else’s discontent.
x-ette
PS- yes, this was a rant.
