Interview with Geert Lovink by Cyrill De Graeve
For the French magazine chronic’art
CdG: What do you think about the “netocratic” theory from Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist?
GL: Netocracy is a rare publication because it is not an academic exercise. One should not read it as a sociological analysis, even though it could easily classified as a theory of an emerging class. It is more a post-political design of a social group with a specific mindset. Netocracy is a typical late nineties hybrid, full of the arrogance and vitality of its time: a bit of business, a bit of theory and aesthetics. It’s the type of discussion one would have in a Berlin club anno 1996. The netocrat is an social construct, a proposal comparable to 1960s and 70s conceptual artworks. I do not think it is fair to say that the netocrats make the claim to fame by declaring themselves avant-garde. Are netocrats ‘post-corporate surrealists’? Take this: “He/she outsmarts the capitalist by ruling the networks that now rule the world. The netocrat is an artistic and political manipulator who has turned networking into an art form.” We should see the netocrat as an imaginative figure in the process of becoming, much like Adilkno’s ‘datadandy’ (a group of which I am a member), or Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein’s ‘virtual class’, even though these two concepts originate from the early days of the public internet (1994). It would be interesting to see which figures will emerge from the Web 2.0/social networking craze at the moment.
CdG: Do you see yourself as a netocrat?
GL: Why not? If is a mask, I have no objections. I do not subscribe to this or that identity. I admire those who design figures and are willing to speculate about future social formations. Think about the cyberpunk, for instance. Also interesting about the netocrats is that it is a genuine European invention, in a field which is entirely dominated by the US imaginary.
CdG: In your surroundings, do you know some people you can indubitably qualified as netocrats and why?
GL: Let’s not falsify such constructs or proposals. Even unlikely forms of subjectivity can become true, even if they have never existed, or never will. The presumption is that the original, global and distributed structure of the Internet will become the dominant paradigm. This sounds likely but is nowhere near the case. Networks like MySpace, YouTube and Facebook are basically advertisement platforms, parasites of the work that users put into it. The new media formations look remarkably far removed from the high power centres such as Wall Street, the old elites, the military or the car and oil industry. The captains of industry have their own networks, yes, and it is now the middle class that is starting to explore the network logic, with the help of computers. In times of hyper growth it is tempting to overestimate the role of certain technologies and associated concepts. The netocracy will, as Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist rightly describe, still have compete with the aristocracy, the corporate structure and state apparatus.
CdG: In our context of an overflow of information, how do we usefully sort things and what are the new media you think are credible and are of interest to you?
GL: People do not cope with life inside the neo-liberal networks. They panic, stress or get depressed. They do not sort out things. Their lives are in a fluid mess as there are too many (conflicting) demands, desires and clashing paradigms. The impossibility to deal with the information overflow is part of a wider symptom of not knowing how to deal with increased work pressure, higher demands, longer work hours, confused gender roles, complex social relations, long-distance relationships. The internet functions as a catalyst of these processes, but is itself also a mirror. Internet is not to be situated outside of our society. It is not an alien technologies that landed some 40 years ago.
Part of the problem, part of the solution are the search engines. The strategy of Google is of a real concern to me. We should organize a broad debate in Europe now if we do not want to end up again with a next Microsoft monopoly — this time not in the operating system realm but in the knowledge sector. I am in favour of socializing Google and give public libraries a much more prominent role. Education and access to knowledge is too important to leave in the hands of one profit-making company. An additional problem with face with Google is its politically correct do-good strategies that we know from the NGO world. Microsoft has always been evil. But how to we confront the corporate responsibility approach with all its good intentions?
CdG: Beyond clichés, what are the main mutations that the Internet, and more generally the networking society has generated, or will generate, when we compare it with the capitalist society?
GL: I love your radical utopian proposition but I fear that we cannot simply oppose capitalism and the network society. The network society, as a sociological construct, primarily pushed by academics, is growing inside contemporary society and has no critical or even utopian intent. Either you get it or you don’t. If Manuel Castells defines it as “a society where the key social structures and activities are organized around electronically processed information networks,” this is a power indifferent definition. It doesn’t say what the underlying architecture of networks is, or should be. Neither does it say if there is an ‘outside’, a sphere beyond the network society. This theory simply states that the electronic network concept is and will be hegemonic and will penetrate all aspect of societal life — and I can subscribe to that. Whether these networkings will strengthen or weaken capitalism is up for a debate. If you hear the word ‘change’ think about the rising tension, the ‘friendly wars’ between networks and the old power structures. With or without a revolution, this conflict in the making will certainly keep us busy over the next decade.
CdG: In order to wake up France, late in the takeoff of netocratic era, what to do?
GL: Don’t panic and do not start to copy-paste from anywhere. We have to identify where exactly the problem has to be allocated. First of all, France is an affluent and technologically advanced society. It is not ‘behind’. France needs to overcome its minitel trauma. Internet is not a très grand projet. Do not enforce some top-down policy. Forget the minitel chapter in a sweet and gentle way as a teenager romance and engage with the critique of the 1970s-80s research and related industry policies in a serious way. The corporate-state-EU media labs that consumed so much money might have to be closed. What France needs is to listen to the streets, to small firms, the young people, and learn from the informal networks that already exist. Provide them with the resources and freedom to develop their own concepts.
Needless to say that France needs to overcome its fear of English. It’s a separate issue that I am not going to deal with here. More important: the French need to disconnect from the EU in order to connect to Europe. The French no vote against the EU constitution was encouraging in that respect, but also had its dangerous aspects. Go out and discover Eastern Europe, participate in Euro-wide networks, do not hide behind Brussels and behave like some secretive ruler of the European project. This mentality makes French partners so boring and suspect as the only thing they can do is strictly follow Brussels guidelines, which are, intellectually speaking, suicidal. The EU-statism mentality marginalizes the critical and innovative French potential. Do not read me wrong. I am not suggesting that more ‘market’ will be the solution here. What is necessary is a straight-out cultural revolution in which the 1968 generation will be removed from power. We all know this is not going to happen by itself. Dismantle the Institutions. We’re told that we have to be patient till those in power have dropped dead, or at least moved to their comfortable old peoples homes on the Côte d’Azur, in 10 years. For the time being this will only lead to more stagnation. Europe is fed up with this French provincialism. We need you!
CdG: In 10 years, who are you, where are you, what do you do?
GL: I’ve been deeply immersed into Internet culture for the past 15 years and I hope to return my previous occupation as a media theorist. Maybe the digital convergence will help me. However, the realist in me tells me that The growth of the Internet has been such that it has been impossible for me to move away from it, even for a short amount of time. It doesn’t happen that often that the communities that one shapes and is part of are capable to actually shape the situation. That’s very rewarding work. In ten years the Internet is double the size and its phase of ‘deep penetration’ into society will be completed by then. This will also mean that the stakes will be much higher. Now, the Internet is still by and large irrelevant if look at culture, politics and even economics. If that’s going to change the pioneers will for sure be pushed aside by the Great Powers. The push for control will be unstoppable. I might then return to radio, one of my passions, book publishing (which I never left) and, of course, German theory.