Re: <nettime> Almost zero

[mp <mp@aktivix.org>]

On 26/02/2022 06:24, Brian Holmes wrote:
> Does anyone remember Vladislav Surkov, "managed democracy," "non-linear
> war"?

Yes.

This was also included in a "documentary" by Adam Curtis called 
'HyperNormalisation'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation

"....“HyperNormalisation” is a word that was coined by a brilliant 
Russian historian who was writing about what it was like to live in the 
last years of the Soviet Union. What he said, which I thought was 
absolutely fascinating, was that in the 80s everyone from the top to the 
bottom of Soviet society knew that it wasn’t working, knew that it was 
corrupt, knew that the bosses were looting the system, know that the 
politicians had no alternative vision. And they knew that the bosses 
knew that they knew that. Everyone knew it was fake, but because no one 
had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just 
accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal. And this historian, 
Alexei Yurchak, coined the phrase “HyperNormalisation” to describe that 
feeling....".

--from: https://www.adbusters.org/articles-coded/what-is-hypernormalization

In Curtis's vision (which is itself expressed in an art form of dubious 
style, easily labelled as manipulative) and with Surkov's contributions 
derived from theatre studies and industry, it becomes a sort of virtual 
quantum mechanical reality where everything is and isn't at the same, is 
here, there and everywhere, so multilayered with truths, non-truths, 
true revelations of fake actions, fake revelation of true actions and so 
on, indefinitely, to the point where nothing really makes sense, except 
paranoia.

As the composer and artist Martin Hall wrote in the 1990s, quoting from 
memory, "...The Third World War has already commenced, it's a war for 
our consciousness..."

Hence perfect paranoia becomes perfect awareness, another sound byte in 
the random tapestry of reality.

Although back then still relatively primitive by today's standards, 
advertising and what Chomsky/Herman called 'Manufacturing Consent' all 
fed into that. Now of course updated with neurological science facts and 
algorithmic targeting. No wonder that Ioan Culiano called advertising a 
contemporary dimension for magic action in his 'Eros and Magic in the 
Renaissance' - and his bizarre 1991 assassination, possibly by Romanian 
Intelligence Service, in a University of Chicago toilet only feeds the fire.

As Freud simplified alchemy to a profession focused on shaping 
individual subjects, and his family helped found the PR industry, God 
given rule through feudal hierarchies gave way to informational control 
and religious-like references to "follow the science".

So now, for instance, we generally accept - in our own best interest - 
that pharmaceutical corporations filter and edit out misinformation 
about their own products and if we don't like what whoever is saying 
there is a digital filter, so that our individual sphere remains untouched.

Heading for ultimate fragmentation, where individual atomisation into 8 
billion echo chambers is the logical conclusion, it is at once 
terrifying and hilarious that the attack on Ukraine has revived the use 
of "western" in corporate media. We the western!

To the barricades....


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