A "virtual class" has taken over the digital realm, say Arthur and Marilouise Kroker. It is a high-tech post-bourgeoisie so obsessed with technology it's about to spawn a new species - a melding of machines and humans the Krokers call "digital flesh." To succeed, the virtual class must rely on the exploitation of a neo-proletariat - "surplus flesh."
Sound familiar? The BBC calls Arthur Kroker a '90s Marshall McLuhan, but he's more like a 21st-century Karl Marx.
In an upcoming book and CD, Hacking the Future (St. Martin's Press), the Krokers interweave theory with elements of fiction in a new take on cyberpolitics. Arthur, a political scientist at Concordia University in Montreal, and Marilouise, a writer, speak in playful terms that are hard to decrypt, but underneath is a remapping of Marx's class system.
Wired: "Digital flesh" - is this a metaphor, or do you mean actual flesh?
Arthur Kroker: Well, when I look at you, I see digital flesh. All your digital orifices are right here - your tape recorder, your digital camera. They transcribe your perception into your flesh. They've probably rewired your perspective already. Maybe you've got a Photoshop imagination, or cut-and-paste relationships.But isn't that digital culture rather than digital flesh?
AK: There's more. What happens when Internet culture meets recombinant genetics? Some day, intelligent agents are going to need bodies. Why should they settle for pixelated bodies? The end of the 20th century marks a convergence between recombinant genetics, Net culture, and artificial intelligence. It's the end of the human species.Technology is in the hands of people who want to use it for narrow purposes: commercialisation and control. The consequences could be tremendous.
In your previous book, Data Trash, co-authored with political philosopher Michael Weinstein, you say chips could be implanted in our flesh. Isn't that far-fetched?
Marilouise Kroker: It's already happening with animals. Our daughter, who lives in Toronto, was given a kitten the other day with a chip in its neck. It contains her name and the health history of the cat.
AK: Now, who wouldn't like to have the choice, after giving birth, to have a chip implanted in the baby, with his or her name, yours, and vital medical information?It could even help people locate their children!
AK: Exactly! What parent wouldn't like that?But don't you see a huge wave of protest should politicians dare to suggest such a measure?
MK: Well, in the US, single mothers on welfare are portrayed by the right wing as a terrible burden on public finances. People won't protest if implanting chips in their babies could somehow help reduce that burden.
AK: Call it health fascism.Where could ideas like that pop up?
AK: I can't think of one country that doesn't have a retro-fascist movement. Canada has the Reform Party. France has Jean-Marie Le Pen. Russia has Vladimir Zhirinovsky. And the US has Newt Gingrich.Tech hype began with the Tofflers and others presenting a utopian perspective on technology. But then, with Gingrich, you suddenly have a movement in which tech hype associates itself with conservative fundamentalist movements. Think of Wired's cover with Newt - "Friend and Foe"... but mostly buddy!
What's wrong with Gingrich? He pushes for digital democracy.
AK: There are significant differences between our perspective and Gingrich's. He wants to break down any notion of democracy based on collective discussion. His is in fact a push-button democracy: 53 per cent of people want Congress to do this? Adopted. Power to the pollsters! That's the antithesis of digital democracy.Historically, change has been triggered by demonstrations in the streets, by armed rebellion. How can power express itself digitally?
AK: First, maybe it's a mistake to think of unitary social movements as we have in the past. It leads to a very totalitarian perspective. Second, a different form of politics, particular to third-millennium culture, is taking shape. It is much more polymorphous and ambivalent in character. And on the Net, a lot of interesting politics are happening. Take the movement of solidarity toward Sarajevo, for example. Sarajevo is today's Spanish Civil War.But is this digital solidarity effective? The Zapatistas put press releases on the Net. Yet, it didn't change much at ground level.
AK: How can people outside Mexico really intervene decisively against the Mexican government's fascist policies of extermination? This is the peculiarity of life today. At the same time digital media encourages a global consciousness, parts of the world recede into darkness.So wired culture doesn't change things much, does it?
AK: Why should it? There are limits to wired culture, and one of its properties is that in many ways,it turns its back on surplus flesh.
MK: Yet as our world changes, if you want to critique it, you have to keep up with it. Antitech people will say, "I don't watch television because it's bad." Well, how can you analyse your culture if you don't watch TV? It's the same thing for what's going on digitally right now.If Karl Marx were living today, what would he say?
AK: The three volumes of Das Kapital give an amazingly accurate critique of contemporary conditions. Yet, we're not pushing a theory of class dialectics. Our Marx has Nietzsche looking over his shoulder all the time!Rebellions of surplus flesh are something I'd certainly support. But I also notice that many members of the virtual class have deep feelings of anxiety and ambivalence about the projects they're involved in. Unlike Marx's bourgeoisie, the virtual class experiences huge contradictions. Just between the coders and the businessmen, there are conflicts. There's resistance even within the virtual class. Its hegemony won't last.
Jean-Hugues Roy (hugo@lanter.net) is a Montreal-based freelance reporter. He contributes to HotWired and edits the French-language Z-Mag.