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Political communication is not only a question of employing mediums but also of mediations. That is, despite the upsides of its project noted above, the mediacentricism of Podemos is the Achilles heel of a strategy designed with apparent initial success. The mediacentric approach has relegated the Podemos movement to a lesser role at the moment, surpassed by a force of the political right; namely, the party that goes by the name Ciudadanos (‘Citizens’) that enjoys the support of the information sector corporations that dominate the public sphere.
Matthew Heskin :


To mortgage all political communication to media is a mistaken deal from a perspective informed by the political economy of communication. The possibilities of political communication on television depend precisely on undermining the hegemony of capital, which imposes limits that are very difficult to exceed, given the power of vested interests.
“Competition does not support sharing. Competition suggests that there is scarcity and supports a scarcity mindset.


The power of mediation demands a strategy that is both inside and outside the mediums--a very tall order, given the interpolated subjects of discourses who have been mediatized by the flow of information that is, in turn, dominated by the conjoined power of mainstream media organs.
History has already proven that the “pie” is not a fixed size. Our “know how” changes the size of the pie even in the face of rapid population growth.
We like to look at the world as one big house. We have a deal of chores that need to be done. If this was your home would you get all your kids to compete with each other or would you get them all to work together? Would you want them to share the best way of getting things done with their siblings or would you like them to keep their “know how” to themselves?


In this view, Podemos’ reading of Laclau’s populist theory of communication politics results in an error. The evolution of these events in Spanish politics demonstrates that to think the constitution of a new political subject can arise from within the hegemonic situation of media is to end up with a mediacentric reductionism; a reductionism with too little in the way of politics and still less that is transformational. If capitalism depends on its political-affective constructions, it does not follow that indetermination of the socio-discursive field would be absolute or liberating; still less if we analyse the hyper-concentrated structure of power in the journalism industry in countries like Spain.
Buckminster Fuller identified and showed us that the world is going through a process called ephemeralization. This is the process of “doing more and more, with less and less”. He also created the counter intuitive statement “sharing is having more”.


The floating signifiers presuppose and demand political subjects who would know how to swim. We know that the idea of the political centre, on this view, is so diffuse as to assume all space as fluid and mutable; and for the same reason, a fluid, mutable “centre” presents the propensity to shipwreck subjects who move themselves into this space (as in for example, the displacement of Podemos voters to Ciudadanos). The discourse and the notion of a public or a people (el pueblo) are by definition opaque and both defer the theory of why events (do, do not) happen, as these come to bear on Podemos.
If you agree that ephemeralization is happening then sharing of our “know how” will create “more” as it rapidly supports the doing more with less.


Allow me to clarify. To think that political identities are not determined by economic relations and concrete social facts--that is, to think that these are basically discursively modelled--disables the transformation possibilities of new subjectivities as well as for historic change.
It is a common misconception that competition creates innovation. Thinking and doing creates innovation, not competition. The question is does competition create optimal thinking and doing? Competition is an extrinsic motivator. People will only do so much for extrinsic reasons; they will do anything and everything for intrinsic reasons.


By contrast, in being mindful of material constraints, critical theory demonstrates that subjectivity and change are all about a process of production and something more than cultural democracy via the market place or the free exchange of signifiers.
If there were a sliding scale between competition and cooperation we would see that humanity is very close (maybe 95%) to the cooperation end of the scale. If you think of all that is required for you to have your breakfast, you will see that 99.999% of the work is performed by others (Your toaster, breakfast cereal, electricity, light bulbs etc.) If you were to try and make your $50 Kmart toaster from scratch, without cooperation, it would be your life’s work and I doubt it would be up to scratch.


Language and work, hand and brain are historically connected. It is not possible to disentangle the universe of discourse from the necessary conditions of lives lived in common. In other words, a process of change is not possible without ourselves facing up to the materiality that mediates all theory and all social action. To avoid being reductively deterministic in deploying a conception of the popular reliant on inconclusiveness, there must be anchors in the real. This is the ill-considered difference in the thinking of Gramsci that arises via Laclau’s interpretation. As I understand it, Laclau lacks a diagnostic within a structural vision; more Bourdieu, please, and less semiotic-centricism. As it stands, Laclau promotes a new idealism about autonomy and the indeterminancy of the symbolic—and he does so largely as if there are no structures of class and rules of the game of access to symbolic capital.
Pushing that slider that last 5% is going to have a bigger impact on humanity and the planet than the previous 95%. Why is this? This is because the previous 95% occurred somewhat unconsciously and the last 5% is going to require conscious action. A holistic view of the world and the issues we face will be required by the global citizenry. Removal of sovereign fences, country divisions, transformation of educational theory and economics are all part of this final 5%. It is also going to require not only an acceptance of cultural and religious difference but a deep sense of gratitude for all diversity (both human and non-human).


This lack of reflexivity leaves the mediated operation of floating signifiers blowing in the wind without consistency, vulgar, not held in common, enveloped in the banality of the new kitsch. The reliance on floating signifiers ushers in a game of thrones proper to the world of spectacle, where creativity and the invention of other imagined worlds is only possible in discourse; that is, in a performative sense, without changes to reality, without intervening in the literal bases and materials of the life world.
It seems to us that competition is no longer the healthy option for our abundant world. When Buckminster Fuller showed us that “sharing is having more” he saw the earth as a whole with no boundaries and no divisions......... “
 
(https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sharing-having-morewhy-compete-matthew-heskin)
The calculated ambiguity of language, the indetermination of the empty floating signifier, tends toward accommodations to the current moment and does so through mere tactics. As in the 1980s, the political communication of Podemos shares the fetishism of commercial communication that appealed to brands and public relations to resolve the structural crisis of capitalism.
 
What is surprising is that many intellectuals of the left share such a vision of pan-communicationism. This is a vision that has denied an idea fundamental to the whole emancipatory project: to wit, submission to the belief that the pure signifier and the logic of symbolic interchange alone open the way to universal equivalence. For this reason, we say that Podemos participates in an impoverished understanding of the relation between theory and reality, between communication strategy and practical politics.

Latest revision as of 16:24, 3 January 2016

Matthew Heskin :

“Competition does not support sharing. Competition suggests that there is scarcity and supports a scarcity mindset.

History has already proven that the “pie” is not a fixed size. Our “know how” changes the size of the pie even in the face of rapid population growth. We like to look at the world as one big house. We have a deal of chores that need to be done. If this was your home would you get all your kids to compete with each other or would you get them all to work together? Would you want them to share the best way of getting things done with their siblings or would you like them to keep their “know how” to themselves?

Buckminster Fuller identified and showed us that the world is going through a process called ephemeralization. This is the process of “doing more and more, with less and less”. He also created the counter intuitive statement “sharing is having more”.

If you agree that ephemeralization is happening then sharing of our “know how” will create “more” as it rapidly supports the doing more with less.

It is a common misconception that competition creates innovation. Thinking and doing creates innovation, not competition. The question is does competition create optimal thinking and doing? Competition is an extrinsic motivator. People will only do so much for extrinsic reasons; they will do anything and everything for intrinsic reasons.

If there were a sliding scale between competition and cooperation we would see that humanity is very close (maybe 95%) to the cooperation end of the scale. If you think of all that is required for you to have your breakfast, you will see that 99.999% of the work is performed by others (Your toaster, breakfast cereal, electricity, light bulbs etc.) If you were to try and make your $50 Kmart toaster from scratch, without cooperation, it would be your life’s work and I doubt it would be up to scratch.

Pushing that slider that last 5% is going to have a bigger impact on humanity and the planet than the previous 95%. Why is this? This is because the previous 95% occurred somewhat unconsciously and the last 5% is going to require conscious action. A holistic view of the world and the issues we face will be required by the global citizenry. Removal of sovereign fences, country divisions, transformation of educational theory and economics are all part of this final 5%. It is also going to require not only an acceptance of cultural and religious difference but a deep sense of gratitude for all diversity (both human and non-human).

It seems to us that competition is no longer the healthy option for our abundant world. When Buckminster Fuller showed us that “sharing is having more” he saw the earth as a whole with no boundaries and no divisions......... “ (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sharing-having-morewhy-compete-matthew-heskin)

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