Category: transparency

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Virtual author

« La Mort de l’auteur « . In a radical sense Roland Barthes was the first to proclaim the death of author as the sole master or mastermind of a text or speech. In fact there are many more on whose direct or indirect contributions a text is based on. However, biographical accounts of an author can only enlighten some (minor) aspects of the influences on the author and the final version of a text, (l’écriture), and the reader (lecteur). In « Le degre zero » the analysis of the different styles of Flaubert and Proust are extolled ( p. 131-139). Flaubert is characterized as the author with infinite corrections on the same texts and sources. It appears today as an endless loop of an algorithm where the stopping rule is not properly defined or implemented. Much in line with the « tabula gratulatoria » of Barthes (p. 279 of Fragments…, see image below) some AI systems return fake versions of a bibliography some readers will rely on. 

In the 21st century l’écriture has become almost inexistant without the technical support of machines, but most of all artificial intelligence. The author is dead, long live the virtual author. The assistance of spelling, grammar and style editing from software programs has widened the spectrum of coauthoring. Editors take more influence through pushing marketing potentials of authors and their writings. Based on previous manuscripts and publications it is possible to produce hallucinations of an author whereby only the author might be able to identify the virtual authorship. At best AI generates first drafts, but similar to the linguist of Barthes, AI is likely to become another brother or sister of l’ecrivain (p. 139). 

The thrust of Barthes is to highlight that there is more to a text than just the version at hand. In fact there are texts in a text or multiple versions or layers of a text. « L’enjeu de l’analyse structurale n’est pas la vérité du texte mais son pluriel » (1972, par ou commencer p.148). In conclusion, almost 50 years after the death of the author we currently witness the miraculous rebirth of the virtual author as the original deus ex machina which we always feared. Don’t worry it’s just another sibling of the original authors.

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Degré zéro

As all of us use GPS systems to navigate across the world or just in your city, “degré zéro” might nowadays be associated first of all with the prime meridian 0° longitude, which runs through Greenwich near London and around the globe.
In « Le degré zéro de l’écriture », Roland Barthes (1953) challenges the bourgeois kind of writing of literature. He introduced the pertinent distinction of the verticality of writing styles in the sense of social classes as well as the horizontal form of spoken language He further distinguished écriture as a person’s style which is embedded into the historical and social context of her/his time. As a radical change, Barthes proposed to use scriptor instead of writer as the latter expression is too much loaded with the historical package of the person. Barthes inserts the scriptor as écrivain into her/his time and insists on the intellectual and social context of writing or the author.
As the scriptor (p. 26) does not escape to become a writer « écrivain «, the degree zero de l’écriture postulates a homogeneous society, which obviously is an ill-conceived vision of reality. Language and texts, therefore, are not universal in kind, but bound to situations, which are defined in historical time and space (p. 67). Semiotics was a major field of his analyses of literature and language.
Whereas in a talk you might focus on the person you are talking to, in a written text the other person is « the many » readers, wherever they are and maybe at a much later time as well. There is a qualitative difference and yet modern “voice to text” transcription makes all spoken words immediately available as written document or “compte rendu”. (Source: Roland Barthes: De la parole à l’écriture. in Le grain de la voix, Entretien 1962-1980. p. 12).
Let’s watch our language as we follow the longitude or latitude around the globe and even small deviations from degree zero matter a lot.

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Spectacularization

Guy Debord (1967) has outlined in “In the society of spectacle” the importance to analyze societies from the perspective of “le temps spectaculaire”. Today we might frame this as “eventism” or the running of society through events. The regular spectacle of religious festivities, new year’s celebrations, Olympic games or even elections and election campaigns have been transformed into ceremonies of enthronization, where the reach to ever larger crowds is the prime goal. The critique of mass media of the 1960s can be deployed to the criticism of the facebook, Instagram and tiktok media campaigns of today. If you are not present on these platforms, you do not seem to exist in the view of the many. Debord highlights under his concept of separation the increasing isolation of persons and thereby a domination of people through technology (Debord para 24,27). Put in today’s terminology form of psycholinguistics we speak of loneliness of the old and young who, through the use of social media technologies, are prosumers even or especially in their free time. They serve the accumulation of massive benefits to the platforms of the spectacle more than their own fulfilment or socializing experiences. The consequence is the isolation of persons, with the paradox to be potentially the winner in the lottery of the algorithms to suddenly reach millions of people. The ephemeral popularity is a curse more than a blessing for most persons. The result is the “singularization” of crowds and within society.
Spectacularization is a process that is accompanied by singularization. Both terms have the merit to stress the process of evolution of societies. Comparing societies turns into an empirical exercise to measure amounts of spectacular events, degrees of spectacularization of individuals and the singularization of individuals within society. The antidote of solidarity and sharing is on the rise as well, which is reason to believe that not all is lost.
(Image: Debord’s annotation on extract of image by Gozzoli, BNF Manuscrit, Paris)

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Société du Spectacle

In 1967 Guy Debord published “la société du spectacle”. The content of the book and Debord’s original thoughts are presented in 221 numbered paragraphs, just like blog entries, with a table of contents with 9 chapters each introduced with a quotation. The first paragraph reads: “Toute la vie des sociétés … s’annonce comme une immense accumulation des spectacles. Tout ce qui était directement vécu s’est éloigné dans une representation.” Modern societies are conceived as a huge accumulation of events. What used to be experienced directly, has become only a distanced representation. The spectacle or the events society has moved beyond the state of being just a part of society to become the defining element of society. At the same time, events in the broadest sense are an instrument of unification (para. 3). Events constitute social links between persons, which are mediatized through images (para. 4). It is a “Weltanschauung, which has become effective and through the force of images (including faked ones) creates an “objectivation”, a kind of imagined reality.
This society of events, following Debreu, creates a positivism with a reflexive structure. Only things get attention that are great events (instagramable, make headlines, clicks), and only great events will receive broader attention (para 11). The result is a tautological character of the events society and it has become self-referential. Society shifts from the definition of (1) être = to be, (2) avoir = to have, to (3) paraître = to appear. It is the appearance that counts. A person’s individualism becomes socially mediated by its ways to appear in front of others (para 17). Social power then derives from the form of representation that can be achieved.
The final entry of the 1st chapter (para 34) states. “Le spectacle est le capital à un tel degré d’accumulation qu’il deviant image”. Events form a kind of capital, which through its accumulation becomes an image or the image of society.

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Passing Disasters

We live in rather cynical times. Just like the practice to scroll through hundreds of newspaper pages or social media entries we pass over the reports of of disaster after the other. Whole industries live from the reporting of disasters in a sensational manner. As the speed of reporting via social and online media has increased over the last few years the time to reflect what are the reasons for the multiple disasters has moved backstage. On the forefront are journalists and life bloggers who gain from increased reach and with the duration of their reporting of disasters. These are the first round effects. Second in line are people proposing fast fixes of what seems to be the problem at first sight. A more thorough analytical approach has little chance against the overwhelming effects of disaster imagery. Before the necessary dara and analyses have been carried out by scientists the next disaster already dominates the headlines and images. Flooding and droughts come and go faster due to climate change, but the reactions just del with reporting and capturing of attention rather than analyses. Next follows the blame game. Rather than unity to deal with consequences responsibility gets pushed from one instance to the next. Another cynical twist is the rise in insurance premiums to be paid by all, because the reporting hypes have increased the cost of repairs for insurance companies and after all more people shall seek insurance and have a higher readiness to accept higher rates for disaster insurance. Maybe this is just another more recent chapter of Sloterdijk‘s „Kritik der zynischen Vernunft“, which we witness currently. The effect of passing disasters is often a feeling of helplessness or powerlessness although we need to do just the opposite. Get together and act together after adequate analyses of underlying mechanisms. (Image Aristite Maillol Brussels, MRBAB)

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Sexual harassment

Under the broader topic of violence against women, we count gender-based harassment at work. The recent report of a survey based on more than 100.000 persons in the European Union in 2021 shows the shocking amount of violence in the last 12 months as well as violence experienced over a lifetime. (Source Eurostat Link to pdf report) These data have to be interpreted with care since it is a well known statistical phenomenon that in some countries such misbehavior is reported and talked about more easily and openly than in other countries. Therefore, the countries with the highest figures, for example in Nordic countries, there it is safe to talk about the issue (Nordic paradox), whereas in other countries violence against women and sexual harassment at work are still much less talked about and addressed in public. Italy even deviated from the joint EU data collection.
It is important to address the topic in the media and lift the cover-up attempts in many societies. This is a process over time, but it is important to continuously raise awareness about the problem. We have made a lot of progress on more equal treatment of women in recent years in most European societies. However, the is need for a “zero tolerance” of violence against women and the sexual harassment at work, which prevents women to take equal shares across all professions. Monitoring the process is an important step, which is necessary to target safety measures in a better way. Further details of the statistics are needed as well to address intersectionality as well. Young women tend to suffer more than older ones. Maybe the latter ones have learned to be more careful to avoid or evade critical situations. It is, however, men who have to reconsider their behaviour towards women at every age, at work as well as at home.

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On Keys

Keys may open multiple doors. Even a single key can open many locks, if constructed in the appropriate way. The obverse of key is also key, at least in the function of keys to lock doors. Hence the trick of the key is its dialectic function (open/close) of access. We practice the functioning of this binary thinking (1= open, 0= closed) several times a day. Even binary thinking can become very complex in case you consider a bunch of keys or organized as a ring of keys. With a plurality of locations or rooms (home, work, leisure) the uncertainty to have the fitting key to the lock in question at your disposable becomes a bit of a puzzle. Here we are, trial and error enter the stage for most of us. Don’t worry, there are digital tools to solve the problem for you, but then the whole issue of trust comes into play more forcefully. Sharing is not only caring, but also daring. Transponders replace keys and passwords have become the new “passe partout”. This leads to the brave new world of encryption as the keyfactor for security. Encryption is key. Are you already encrypting or still turning keys?
Keys are key to understanding as well. Artists in Berlin-Schöneberg combined the portraits of persons and their bundles of keys next to each other. Keys seem to reveal key personality traits of a person. Life course researchers may investigate the “first ownership” of a key to a room, an apartment or the family home as a factor of independence, even freedom to move. Handing over the keys of a car or your home to a significant other may mark looming restrictions due to health issues.
Anyway, what is your favourite key in music? More a fan of serial music or 12-tone music?

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On ambiguity

Ambiguity is defines as something which can have more than precisely defined meaning. In legal affairs or other domains this may cause confusion and invites discussions or clarification. It has become even a personality trait and a competence to endure ambiguity. If a manager distributes tasks, ambiguity creates a potential for misunderstanding. However, ambiguity may also leave room for self-organization that people might like or be afraid of. Hence. handling of ambiguity is something of a skill that you are able to operate in less well or even undefined situations or circumstances. In such cases you have make decisions yourself and take responsibility later on for your decision. Creating ambiguity or ambiguous situations is a technique in art as well. To throw into doubt what previously was the received wisdom challenges people and institutions. The ways to handle ambiguity become a challenge to the performance of individuals or institutions. In dialectic thinking you think of something as well as the opposite. The result is an ambiguity which you might want to resolve. Quantum physics created a similar challenge to classical physics as more than one kind of behavior of particles is possible. Ambiguity might be more the rule than the exception despite our continuous efforts to disentangle ambiguity.

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Comprehensive Conflict

In a recent paper Mara Karlin (2024 Foreign Affairs LINK) has stated the need for the Western World to understand and even prepare for comprehensive conflict. Particularly in response to Putin‘s war on Ukraine’s territory and the threats and potential use of the full range of weapons including cyber warfare, destruction of energy resources and military production sites the current war comes close to total war. Several European countries have made significant steps to increase budgets for the new forms of comprehensive conflict management. This starts with adequate discussion in public on the dramatically changed security situation after the „Zeitenwende“ caused by Putin. The forceful Ukrainian response with much financial assistance from the West has pioneered drone counter strikes and by this put an end to the Russian progression into its territory. In order to match the total war ideology Putin is implementing in Russian society the Western world will have to rethink production models and strategic defense capabilities in all areas to match the rather real threats by Russia. The prevention of the spreading of comprehensive conflict is of utmost importance since the risk of an expansion of Russian influence and suppression of any internal resistance in Russia has devastating consequences. The 2024 book by Tatjana Tönsmeyer „Under German Occupation, Europe 1939-1945“ (own translation of German title) demonstrates what it meant to live under the domination of an inhuman dictatorship which is ready to use all out war and violence at any occasion. We have to confront this, even if we don’t want to face it. Nevertheless, the Russian aggression is also strongly targeted on its own people not to take risks of separation from Russia as this would mean devastating destruction to those regions and people who dare to do so. External explosions are therefore for Putin a prevention of implosion of the Russian Federation similar to the Soviet Union previously. Comprehensive Conflict extinguishes any remaining internal opposition as intended collateral damage. In Western countries, however, we shall have to argue with opponents and build majorities through understanding the issues at stake not through silencing opponents and opposition. The debate about comprehensive conflict is only about to start, but it is likely to last for several election cycles. (own image, Contemplation on infinite landscapes, Berlin 2024)

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Justice Tech

The digital or hybrid courtroom has become more the rule than the exception in Germany. Video conference equipment reduces costs and can speed judicial processes. Even the production of transcripts from the proceedings and circulation of documents and certificates, enhanced by AI will change the speed to exercise justice. Digital tools and technology has found its way into the courtroom and younger lawyers and judges as well as the accused or defendants will value the simplified procedures. Until this is the standard in all legal domains we shall have to wait a bit. In Germany 2026 is the deadline to install the adequate equipment and tech companies and consulting firms like Arktis are well prepared to support this overdue process. In terms of an economic theory of the judicial process a judgement that is delivered years later has to apply a discount rate of at least equal to annual inflation. For moral issues another discount rte might apply. Excessive delays of judgments may cause additional suffering on the side of victims. Justice Tech, therefore, has a role to play in the practical and theoretical debate about „doing justice“. (Image SCCON Berlin 2024-10)