Webbodies

He doesn't like my "strategem" in which i argue for a broader concept of the body. I think that healthy thinking about virtual bodies is dependent on healthy thinking about the connections between individual and communal bodies. Actually, I think that virtual bodies are an interesting test case for performance but I want to give the best articulation of individual and social bodies before moving on to the virtual. David thinks that he disagrees with me on this do to a difference in faith. While the "body of Christ" provides for me an excellent example of what a social body looks like I don't think it is the only example. Aristotle's polis is a social body in the rich sense that I want to talk about her. There are a bunch of times throughout history, other than Hobbes' Leviathan, when an analogy between individual and communal or social bodies has been put to service. So I'm not sure that David and I disagree based on faith, it might just be that we have different ideas of individuals and communities.

David's escape route is wonderful. Its the kind of careful attention to how the web affects our thinking that keeps me up at night. The thing that I want to notice about it is that I could replace the singular thoughout the four moves and apply it to any of the communities that I belong to and I think his wisdom is no less applicable. Here's his escape route with interleaved pluralized versions of each point.

First, we agree that what's important about our bodies isn't the matter/atoms of our body. Rather, it's our peculiar relation to those atoms. That it's my body counts for everything, but if we look at bodies just as matter, we don't get to the my-ness.

What's important about our community is not just the people involved. What's really important is their relationship to each other. That its our body counts for everything because these relationships constitute it.

Second, we look at that relationship. What does it mean to have a body? It means, among other things, that we care about what happens to these atoms, that we have a point of view from the space and time in which we're rooted, and that we are able to turn towards the world with other similarly situated and caring bodies.

But its not just relationships internal to the body/community that are important. We care about what happens to us, in the particular contexts we find ourselves, alongside other communities that are similarly situated and careful.

Third, we note that voice - in the "I am what I speak" sense - has those three characteristics: we speak from a point of view about what we care about, turning towards the world together with others.

As a community, we are formed by the stories and traditions that precede us. We are what we speak. For the philosophers in the crowd, we like MacIntyre as much as Heidegger.

Fourth, the Web is all about voice. Thus, on the Web we use and value the very characteristics that being embodied grants us. We learn not that the body is unimportant but that the body purely as matter is unimportant. We go back to the Real World better understanding that having a body is about having passion and a point of view, not about having atoms. We come back to the world newly conigzant not just of how important embodiment is for individuals, but communites shared online can also rremind us of the importance of communites shared offline. Perhaps this is the way to revive our democracy afterall. Maybe Dean's MeetUp thing will really work?

Now this kind of thinking, making someone elses words say what you mean them to is pretty violent so I hope that I recieve much correction on this. But I do think that together we are on to something here and I am excited to see where it goes. Posted by Trevor at June 4, 2003 11:43 PM | TrackBack