Still talking here about about online/offline identities…and more.
Seems like the theory of who and what we are, wish to be and will be, is being constantly tested and transformed by the myriad circumstances of the world around and within us. There can be no one person in the midst of this change, and the search for that one person or one identity has been the work of mystics and thinkers down through the ages.
So I leave the question of internal or external identity, of internal and external spaces, domestic and public, private and public to the French philosophers (and others).
The only clear definition comes in marketing and politics, where staying “on message” with a 3-point discussion, simplified for the general population brings a brand identity. Solid. Unchanging. Something people can trust. In a world of resonant chaos and constant transformation, this idea is something people dearly wish to cling to.
We give them that, through marketing and a kind of fundamentalism of simplistic thought.
Power point lifestyle – a jail for resonant poetic thinking. Check out this well-circulated example.
Years ago I was “converted” to the McLuhan way of thinking when I went to a seminar sponsored by the association of electrical engineers (IEEE). Here Barrington Nevitt, a friend and collaborator with McLuhan, and Gordon Thompson of Bell Labs gave a great talk on the future of computers. By then they were old men. They compared the synthesis/resonance approach of Chinese characters (as seen in Ezra Pound’s work) with the “Two-bit wit” of computers fragmenting the world into bits.
The interplay between their two points of view led to resonant aphoristic discovery. No point and all points. As they say, centers everywhere, circumference nowhere. So given that way of looking, I have to say that the quest for identifiable markers on the path is a bit of a red herring. Even the strongest brands, like mountains, transform over time. And for an individual to consider self-branding, reducing the immensity of being into a 3 point on-message soundbite: well that is the sad effect of two-bit wit.
We have the ability for more nuance and discovery. So I’m opting for that in my exploration of individual online persona and identity. Integration of as much as possible, with the natural variety and unpredictability of life itself, which leaves some areas hidden, yet to be discovered.
Corporate organizations so quickly shut down when faced with the complex reality of social media, which is much more unpredictable. The Mad Men Twitter AMC experience is a good example. I recounted my own brief experience here in my personal blog.
Our discussion regarding civic involvement earlier in this blog also refers to some of these issues: Blog watch.
In the interplay between events, we glimpse themes or memes becoming clarified, but only for a brief moment, before the interplay reveals another flash.
Watch this space: this is where the memes emerge. Pretty zen, isn’t it?
Barry was a good friend of mine. I believe that he, as many of McLuhan’s collaborators, has been little recognized for his contributions. Good to see him get some credit. Barry btw was one of the few collaborators who was able to maintain cordial relations with McLuhan to the end! Barry’s last work was to publish Who Was Marshall McLuhan which brought together comments pro and con about MM.
I do think though that the “2 bit wit” showed the fallibility of both Barry and Marshall; their inability to see all of the future of computing.