Maelstrom Escape Strategies IV:

In the End, a New Beginning

Maelstrom Escape Strategies IV: In the End, a New Beginning

The planned conclusion of this series last week had to be put off when I came down with an awful cold/flu. Now we resume our journey with some more ‘strategies’ for surviving, escaping, avoiding our own technological maelstroms. My object in this work has been to address our social predicament by working on the individual level because I believe that is the greatest opportunity for impact and change. Unfortunately, human history doesn’t hold much promise for change if we wait for companies or governments to act.

I think many of us, most of us, feel quite helpless when it comes to technology. Forced to surf the technological tsunami as best we can in order to navigate daily life and make a living. Looking at the situation and feeling overwhelmed and helpless. For myself, finding that 1955 article was a ray of hope – Marshall McLuhan once felt the same way, that the forces at work were too complex to hope to understand and control. But he put his incredible mind to it and discovered that it’s not impossible, merely complex.

We all lead busy lives, increasingly mediated and controlled by technology and devices of our own make. We continue to innovate and to hand over more and more responsibility and control, and these things are very difficult to get back. But as much as we’ve given away, as busy as we are, there are opportunities if we look for them. Those opportunities are shrinking but they are there. And even little changes add up and make a difference, and are worth pursuing.

I hope that the following give you some ideas of ways you might make small but significant changes. Maybe, if more of us make these small changes, we will consider and act more deliberately about how we integrate new technologies into our lives going forward – we have much more power than we realize. We have all the power.

Maelstrom Escape Strategies was originally produced as research for Eternal. And now we are open sourcing it for you.

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE NOTIFIED

Notifications seem really convenient until they become something more. Turn off all notifications.

Interrupt, disrupt.

Fulford: “What kind of a world would you rather live in? Is there a period in the past or a possible period in the future you’d rather be in?”

McLuhan: “No, I’d rather be in any period at all as long as people are going to leave it alone for a while.”

Fulford: “But they’re not going to, are they?”

McLuhan: “No, and so the only alternative is to understand everything that is going on, and then neutralize it as much as possible, turn off as many buttons as you can, and frustrate them as much as you can.  I am resolutely opposed to all innovation, all change, but I am determined to understand what’s happening because I don’t choose just to sit and let the juggernaut roll over me.  Many people seem to think that if you talk about something recent, you’re in favor of it.  The exact opposite is true in my case.  Anything I talk about is almost certainly to be something I’m resolutely against, and it seems to me the best way of opposing it is to understand it, and then you know where to turn off the button.”
(Interviewed by Robert Fulford, 1966)

Turn off as many buttons as possible.

BE THE PDF YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WHIRL

It’s not that kindness is contagious, it’s that it builds your spirit.

Acts of kindness, small or large, have a cumulative effect in you.

It’s a nice feeling to do something to make someone’s day a bit better, even if they don’t necessarily acknowledge it.

BE A BETTER FRIEND

BE FRIENDLY

Don’t ‘pay it forward’ so because ‘what goes around, comes around.’ Pay it forward because it’s a nice thing to do, because doing nice things for others is a nice feeling for you.

Living in the country, visiting the city is always jarring. The internet is like a large city, and people tend to behave similarly. The difficulty is that when we’re confronted with too much information, we have to make compromises in order to function, to maintain some kind of mental integrity.

Like how our bodies operate largely beneath our active awareness.

One compromise is that we downgrade friendliness to civility, or sometimes to an impersonal kind of impenetrable bubble that does not reflect the best of us.

SHRINK

It’s the same ‘problem’ I have trying to get my mail but blown out of proportion. In my example, over a small distance (a ten-minute walk) I might see a hundred or two hundred people on foot or in cars, and I might know a handful enough to stop and chat. I might have a nodding acquaintance with dozens more, and I’d guess that at least half the people I see would be vaguely familiar (my wife, who grew up in the area would likely have double my numbers and more than that she’d likely know their family roots and how they are or are not related. That might sound ridiculous but it acts as a system of support and accountability).

But in a big city, across the same distance you could very well 10x or greater the volume of humanity. And how do you deal with that? You can’t, really. So you shut down. You don’t make eye contact. You don’t engage. You dehumanize.

WE NEED TO REHUMANIZE

Online, without the complicating factor of a body and the concrete identity and consequences which come with it, it’s a whole other situation. A body carries an identity, accountability.

IDENTITY IS ACCOUNTABILITY

You could try to be friendly to the wrong person on the street and end up in a dangerous situation. On the other hand, you can say just about anything to anyone online and suffer no direct consequences, only harming another person. But again, without a body to back it up, it’s as hard to see the impact of your actions, as it is to feel them yourself – because while kindness builds you up a small piece at a time, so an unkind word or action chips you away a piece at a time.

SCALE DOWN

The power of community is the power of accountability and mutual flourishing.

Find your people.

Support your people.

WE BECOME WHAT WE BEHOLD

WE SHAPE OUR TOOLS AND THEREAFTER OUR TOOLS SHAPE US

We shape our communities and our communities take care of us (or not).

Escape depends to an extent on knowing the danger, and its nature. If you’re drowning, get a life jacket or something to hold onto. If the air is toxic, get a respirator. If you’re on a collision course, apply the brakes, turn, swerve.

CALL FOR HELP

Your friends want to help you. If they don’t want to help you, they’re not your friends. Or, maybe you’re not asking for help but for something else, and by refusing to enable your self-destruction, they are trying to help you. This is where honesty and trust in yourself and your friends is critical.

> >>  << <

To address problems of speed, devise strategies to slow down.

To address problems of scale, shrink down.

To address problems of anonymity, introduce accountability.

> >>  << <

When trapped in a downward spiral, create an upward spiral.

KINDNESS

LEVITY

LOVE

Upward Spiral

“the voice of the void,

creation, spoke:

laugh

(always laugh)

for laughter

is a sweet destruction”

(‘Five Bloody Cannons’, 2021)

MAKE FRIENDS

MAKE ART

Make lots of art. Make the art only you can make.

Allow your heart to relieve your mind and take it off your chest.

Make art.

There’s not only nothing wrong with making art or music or poetry or anything as self-expression, it’s necessary. It’s a balm. It’s cathartic. It’s nourishing. It’s good for you and the world whether or not it’s valued by anyone else. For that matter, feel utterly free to make ‘bad art.’ You don’t have to share it. You can even destroy it after.

> >>  << <

AVOID A VOID

Consumer: ‘Don’t be stupid’

Producer: ‘Don’t be evil’

Survival and Escape are very closely related, as are the strategies for accomplishing both.

Avoidance is something else. It presumes a position of safety.

Such safety today is a luxury few can afford even if they can obtain it.

Forgive the analogy, but it is an ignorant and wishful-thinking addict who suffers the delusion of self-control.

I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT TO

Or, get defensive and claim it’s your choice to spend your time how you want to. That’s correct. It’s your choice. And you can spend your time how you want to. But the question is

WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE?

And are your choices going to take you there?

“Men have always been manipulated by their own inventions and called it ‘freedom.”

“Awareness of the sensory and perceptual effects of diverse technologies can make possible a humane and modest existence for those who seek it.”

“New Art is the survival chart for relevance amidst the technological challenges that incessantly distort and junk our existing sensory patterns.”

(Untitled typescript, February 28, 1973)

I think we kid ourselves a lot of the time, and if we stop and confront ourselves in the mirror, we know the truth. But we want to look at ourselves on the screen more than we do in the mirror. Like Narcissus, we don’t recognize ourselves in what the screen reflects. It’s very much a case of mistaken identity.

Confronting our own ignorance, or own subtle deceit, is really hard. It’s as difficult as stopping to say hello to a person sitting on the street asking for change.

I think we’re all asking for change.

“Over and over I’ve talked to groups and individuals about new technology as new environment. Content of new environment is old environment. The new environment is always invisible. Only the content shows and yet only the environment is really active as a shaping force. … To deal with the environment directly is my strategy Harry. To attack the new environment as if it were an artefact capable of being molded.

… in order to have autonomy we must push past the unconscious and environmental parameters right up into consciousness.

“All that I’ve said about the medium is the message is sound. But it becomes acceptable when put as ‘new technology is new environment.’ Everybody knows that environment is a force. The principle works in many ways e.g. at what point does the supply of any item become environmental? Answer: ‘when it creates demand.’”

(letter to Harry Skornia)

To survive, escape, and then avoid a future maelstrom, you and I must rely on ourselves and each other. Our friends, family, community.

But what about the Maelstrom itself? In Poe’s story, this is a force of nature. But our Maelstrom is of our own making.

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE

WE ARE RESPONSE-ABLE

Once upon a time, at Google, there was a sign on the wall that said ‘Don’t be evil.’ If it was a little tongue-in-cheek, it was also an acknowledgement of the power of technologies.

Perhaps putting the sign up was symbolic. Taking it down was an even more powerful symbol.

Speaking of ignorance and wishful thinking – we know better. It should be patently obvious by now to all that the medium is the message, that the content is the carrier, that the user pays the price.

“In an age of accelerated change the need to perceive the environment becomes urgent. Acceleration also makes such perception of the environment more possible.”
(Env/Anti-Env ’65)

We have many tools at our disposal to design smarter and better and yet we design for the poorest of reasons. Chiefly among them today is that we design to capture and hold user’s attention and participation. And we are seeing what the payoff is. It’s not great.

“New environments reset our sensory thresholds. These, in turn, alter our outlook and expectations … We have no reason to be grateful to those who juggle the thresholds in the name of haphazard innovation.”

(Env/Anti-Env ’65)

I’m not sure demanding better from tech companies is a very effective strategy. The established companies are quite set in their ways to count on for very much.

“Here lies hope”

(FBC, ’21)

However as the tools become more powerful and more accessible, the power dynamic shifts also. And, as ever, young people are our hope. When I look around me, I see the new technologists doing remarkable things. And doing it with style. And doing it with concern. They are also more savvy than previous generations because I believe they have learned from their mistakes. They are more careful about who they do business with – and they are in such demand that they have the luxury of being picky.

THERE’S A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE FUNNEL

There’s a feeling right now that is similar to the feeling at the dawn of the internet. An enthusiasm, a sense of wonder and possibility. But much less naïveté. I believe we’re in a much better place to do things better. I hope this is not my own ignorance and wishful thinking.

In the end it comes down to hard choices. Individually and collectively. Who do we want to be, and how do we get there? If we decide that human flourishing is more important than harvesting humans for their attention and data, preying on each other like parasites, then we have to drastically change our approach to how and why we innovate.

It’s a race against time because we are rapidly descending into the maelstrom and at any moment we could plunge over and down to be ground up on the bottom of the sea.

But here’s the thing. I believe in us. I believe that human ingenuity can get us out of the mess into which human ingenuity has delivered us.

“Courage!”

(EM, 2018)

Andrew McLuhan

Bloomfield,

April 7, 2023

Thank you for your attention to this series. Next week, we’ll be back with something new, no doubt in a similar vein — using the work of Eric and Marshall McLuhan as anchors from the past to help us make some sense in the present. If you have comments or suggestions, please get in touch.