From 83a0e324d9707a646bf5672cb243aa7eee4e60dc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Nika Zhenya Date: Sun, 5 May 2019 19:36:46 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?Peque=C3=B1as=20correcciones=20a=203?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- content/md/003_dont_come.md | 167 +++++++++++++++++++----------------- 1 file changed, 89 insertions(+), 78 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/md/003_dont_come.md b/content/md/003_dont_come.md index 923b53c..1366e64 100644 --- a/content/md/003_dont_come.md +++ b/content/md/003_dont_come.md @@ -2,34 +2,34 @@ > @published 2019/05/05, 12:00 {.published} -I love books. I love them so much that I even decide to make +I love books. I love them so much that I even decided to make a living from them---probably a very bad career decision. But I can't idealize that love. During school and university I was taught that I should love books. Actually, some teachers made me clear that it was the only way I could get my bachelor's degree. Because books are -one of the main freedom devices in our shitty world, right? Not -loving books is like the will to stay in a cave---hello, Plato. -Not celebrating its greatness is just one step to support antidemocratic -regimes. And while I was learning to love books, of course I -also learn to respect its “creators,” until I desire to be one -of them. +the main freedom and knowledge device in our shitty world, right? +Not loving books is like the will to stay in a cave---hello, +Plato. Not celebrating its greatness is just one step to support +antidemocratic regimes. And while I was learning to love books, +of course I also learn to respect its “creators” and the industry +than made it happened. I don't think it is casual that the development of what we mean by book is independent from the developments of capitalism and what we understand by author. Maybe correlation; maybe intersection; -but definetly not separates stories. +but definitely not separates stories. Let's start with a common place: the invention of printing. Yeah, -it is an arbitraty and problematic start. We could say that books -and authors goes far before that; therefore, they aren't a product -of what it would became capitalism. But what we have in that -particularly place in history is the standardization and massification -of a practice. It didn't happen from day to night, but little -by little all the methodological and technical diversity became +it is an arbitrary and problematic start. We could say that books +and authors goes far before that. But what we have in that particularly +place in history is the standardization and massification of +a practice. It didn't happen from day to night, but little by +little all the methodological and technical diversity became more homogeneous. And with that, we were able to made books not -as luxury commodities, but as objects of everyday use. +as luxury or institutional commodities, but as objects of everyday +use. And not just books, but printed text in general. Before the invention of printing, we could barely see text in our surroundings. What @@ -40,13 +40,13 @@ of text in our daily basis. Newspapers first and now social media relies on that normalization to generate the idea of an “universal” public debate---I don't know if it is actually “public” if almost all popular newspapers -and social media platforms are own by corporations and its criterias; +and social media platforms are own by corporations and its criteria; but let's pretend it is a minor issue. And public debate supposedly -incentivates democracy. +incentivizes democracy. Before Enlightenment the owners of printed text realized its -freedom potential. Most churchs and kingdoms tried to control -it. The Protestant Church first and then the Enlightment and +freedom potential. Most churches and kingdoms tried to control +it. The Protestant Church first and then the Enlightenment and emerging capitalist enterprises hijacked the control of public debate; specifically who owns the means of printed text production, who decides the languages worthy to print and who sets its main @@ -59,15 +59,15 @@ who tried to have that control and power. And most of them failed and keep failing. So during 18th century books started to have another meaning. -They ceased to be mainly devices of God's word to be _a_ device -of freedom of speech. Thanks to the firsts emerging capitalists -we got means for secular thinking. Acts of censorship became -evident acts of political restriction instead of acts against -sinners. +They ceased to be mainly devices of God's or authority's word +to be _a_ device of freedom of speech. Thanks to the firsts emerging +capitalists we got means for secular thinking. Acts of censorship +became evident acts of political restriction instead of acts +against sinners. The invention of printing created so big demand of printed text -that it actually generated the publishing industry. Selfpublishing -to satisfy internal institutional demand openned the place to +that it actually generated the publishing industry. Self-publishing +to satisfy internal institutional demand opened the place to an industry for new citizens readers. A luxury and religious object became a commodity in the “free” market. @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ in order to secure freedom? But it also developed other freedom that was fastened by religious or political authorities: the freedom to be identify as an author. -How we understand authorship in our days depends in the process +How we understand authorship in our days depends in a process where the notion of author became more closed to the idea of “creator.” And it is actually a very interesting semantic transfer. _In one way_ the invention of printing mechanized and improved @@ -89,27 +89,33 @@ of enterprise and speech---what was seen even as a demonic invention became one of the main technologies that still defines and reproduces the idea of humanity. -This openned the opportunity to independent authors. Printed -text wasn't anymore a matter of God's word or authorities but -a secular and more ephemeral Human's word. The massification -of publishing also openned the gates for less relevant and easy-to-read -printed texts; but for the incipient publishing industry it didn't -matter: it was a way to catch more profits and consumers. +This opened the opportunity to independent authors. Printed text +wasn't anymore a matter of God's or authority's word but a secular +and more ephemeral Human's word. The massification of publishing +also opened the gates for less relevant and easy-to-read printed +texts; but for the incipient publishing industry it didn't matter: +it was a way to catch more profits and consumers. + +Not only that, it reproduces the ideas that were around over +and over again. Yes, it growth the diversity of ideas but it +also repeated speeches that safeguard the state of things. How +much books have been a device of freedom and how much they have +been a device of ideological reproduction? That is a good question +that we have to answer. So authors without religious or political authority found a way to sneak their names in printed text. It wasn't yet a function of property---I don't like the word “function,” but I will use -it anyways---but a function of attribution: they wanted to publicy +it anyways---but a function of attribution: they wanted to publicly be know as the human who wrote those texts. No God, no authority, no institution, but a person of flesh and bone. But that also meant regular powerless people. Without backup -of God or King, who the fucks are you, little peasant? Publishers---aka -printers in those years---took advantage. That is why I did a -very problematic analogy, the fascitation to saw a work printed -with your name is similar to see a Wikipedia article about you. -You don't gain directly anything, only reputation. It relies -on you to made it profitable. +of God or King, who the fucks are you, little peasant? Publishers---a.k.a. +printers in those years---took advantage. The fascination to +saw a newspaper article about books you wrote is similar to see +a Wikipedia article about you. You don't gain directly anything, +only reputation. It relies on you to made it profitable. During 18th century, authorship became a function of _individual_ attribution, but not a function of property. So I think that @@ -128,26 +134,26 @@ beyond our corporeal world. And you don't have to rationalize it: you can't prove it, you just feel it and know it. So german writers used that as foundations for independent authorship. -No God's word, no authorship, no institution, but a person inspired +No God's or authority's word, no institution, but a person inspired by things beyond our world. The notion of “creation” has a very -strong religious and methaphysical backgrounds that we can't -just ignore them: act of creation means the capacity to bring -to this world something that it didn't belong to it. The relationship +strong religious and metaphysical backgrounds that we can't just +ignore them: act of creation means the capacity to bring to this +world something that it didn't belong to it. The relationship between authorship and text turned out so imminent that even nowadays we don't have any fucking idea why we accept as common -sense that authors have a superior and inalianeble bond to its +sense that authors have a superior and inalienable bond to its works. But before the expansionism of German Romanticism notion of author, writers were seen more as producers that sold their work to the owners of means of production. So while the invention of printing -facilitated a new kind of secular and indepent author, _in other -hand_ it summoned Authorship Fog: “Whenever you cast another -Book spell, if Spirits of Printing's Invention is in the command -zone or on the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Author creature -token with flying and indestructible.” As material as a printed -card we made magic to grant authors a creative function: the -ability to “produce from nothing.” +facilitated a new kind of secular and independent author, _in +other hand_ it summoned Authorship Fog: “Whenever you cast another +Book spell, if Spirits of Printing is in the command zone or +on the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Author creature token +with flying and indestructible.” As material as a printed card +we made magic to grant authors a creative function: the ability +to “produce from nothing” and a bond that never dies or changes. Authors as creators is a cool metaphor, who doesn't want to have some divine powers? In the abstract discussion about the relationship @@ -156,10 +162,10 @@ fit. You don't have to rely in anything material to grasp all of them as an unique phenomena. But in the concrete facts of printed texts and the publishers abuse to authors you go beyond attribution. You are not just linking an object to a subject. -Instead, you are grating property relationships between an object -and a subject. +Instead, you are grating property relationships between subject +and an object. -And property means nothing if you can't exploit it. At the beging +And property means nothing if you can't exploit it. At the beginning of publishing industry and during all 18th century, publishers took advantage of this new kind of “property.” The invention of the author as a property function was the rise of new legislation. @@ -167,25 +173,26 @@ Germans and French jurists translated this speech to laws. I won't talk about the history of moral rights. Instead I want to highlight how this gave a supposedly ethical, political and -legal justification of the individualization of cultural commodities. +legal justification of _the individualization_ of cultural commodities. Authorship began to be associated inalienably to individuals and _a_ book started to mean _a_ reader. But not only that, the -possibilities of intelectual freedom were reduced to a particular +possibilities of intellectual freedom were reduced to a particular device: printed text. -More freedom traslated to the need of more and more printed material. -More freedom implied the requirement of bigger and bigger publishing -industry. More freedom entailed the expansionism of cultural -capitalism. Books switched to commodities and authors became -its owners. Moral rights were never about the freedom of readers, -but who was the owner of that commodities. +More freedom translated to the need of more and more printed +material. More freedom implied the requirement of bigger and +bigger publishing industry. More freedom entailed the expansionism +of cultural capitalism. Books switched to commodities and authors +became its owners. Moral rights were never about the freedom +of readers, but who was the owner of that commodities. Books stopped to be sources of oral and local public debate and -became private devices for an “universal” public debate. Authorship -puts attribution in secondary place so indivudal ownership could -become its synonymous. A book for several readers and an author -as an id for an intellectual movement or institution became irrelevant -against a book as property for a particular reader and author. +became private devices for an “universal” public debate: the +Enlightenment. Authorship put attribution in secondary place +so individual ownership could become its synonymous. A book for +several readers and an author as an id for an intellectual movement +or institution became irrelevant against a book as property for +a particular reader---as material---and author---as speech--. And we are sitting here reading all this shit without taking to account that ones of the main wins of our neoliberal world @@ -193,33 +200,37 @@ is that we have been talking about objects, individuals and production of wealth. Who the fucks are the subjects who made all this publishing shit possible? Where the fucks are the communities that in several ways make possible the rise of authors? For fuck sake, why aren't -we talking about the maintenance of means of production? +we talking about the hidden costs of the maintenance of means +of production? We aren't books and we aren't its authors. We aren't those individuals who everybody are gonna relate to the books we are working on and, of course, we lack of sense of community. We aren't the ones who enjoy all that wealth generated by books production -but for sure we are the ones who made all that possible. We are -neglecting ourselves: change my mind. +but for sure we are the ones who made all that possible. _We +are neglecting ourselves_. So don't come with those tales about the greatness of books for our culture, the need of authorship to transfer wealth or to -give attribution and how important for our lifes is the publishing +give attribution and how important for our lives is the publishing production. * Did you know that books have been mainly devices of ideological - reproduction---most best-selling books aren't critical thinking - books that free our minds, but school books with its hidden - curriculum and selfhelp and erotic books that keep reproducing - basic exploitable stereotypes? + reproduction or at least mainly devices for cultural capitalism---most + best-selling books aren't critical thinking books that free + our minds, but text books with its hidden curriculum and + self-help and erotic books that keep reproducing basic exploitable + stereotypes? * Did you realize that authorship haven't been the best way to transfer wealth or give attribution---even now more than before authors have to paid in order to be published at the same time that in the practice they lose all rights? * Did you see how we keep to be worry about production no matter what---it doesn't matter that it would imply bigger chains - of free labor or, as I prefer to say: chains of explotation - and “intellectual” slavery? + of free labor or, as I prefer to say: chains of exploitation + and “intellectual” slavery, because in order to be an + scholar you have to embrace publishing industry and maybe + even cultural capitalism? Please, don't come with those tales, we already reached more fertile fields that can generate way better stories.