Blog Post # 8 Due Saturday 4/14 @ 11:59PM; comment 4/15 @ 11:59PM: So... are we our phones?

Embodied Technology 

When you're talking about feet shaped by shoes, or 'belly fat' deposited by high-fructose corn syrup (and lots else), or even shirts–coming in 'boy' and 'girl' buttoning patterns that reflect and reinforce rigid gender distinctions—it all seems pretty clear. It's subtler when we fold in Ian Hacking (via Carl Elliot) arguing for the 'semantic contagion' of the internet giving us things to think that never occurred to us ('rule 34')—including ideas like that we 'always knew we were men in women's bodies,' or double amputees. Our minds and souls are sort of colonized by technologies. Technology made flesh. Not just 'digital,' but all our 'non-human actors.'

To review: (thought problem) Who would I be in a world without mirrors?  Really: if you had no external image of yourself, how would you represent yourself to yourself?  Or to put it in our theoretical terms: absent technologies of representation and reflection (literally, in the case of mirrors) what would our self-concepts be?  Am I a series of images of myself?  And how do I like them?


The Meitu selfie technology problem begins with a mirror and ends on the operating table during plastic surgery. Focusing on things like skin color and epicanthal eye folds, it engages profound racism and colonial systems. In Brazil, the most common plastic surgery is breast reduction (because big breasts read 'black,' and white is favored). In Viet Nam, it's alteration of eyes to look 'Western' (Sander Gilman. Making the body beautiful). 

And add to this: anime—and the eyes get impossibly huge.

So lots of technologies; some digital, some not, some sort of 'literary'—like anime, which started as comic books.  If I (Robin) had to look like my Meitu selfie, I would hate myself.

So, 'modest proposal': technology gets inside us. Better: we are, and have always been, our technologies. Anthropologist Gregory Bateson (Steps toward an ecology of mind) asks us to think about the 'blind man's (sic) cane.' Where does the man stop and the cane begin?  Is the cane part of the man?  Are we our phones?  And so what?

1. Find a piece of technology that you think has changed you, shaped you—body and soul.  Since we're exploring 'digital,' digital would be good. But really anything you can describe as technology. Robin says he sees his life, now, through how he will present it on Facebook, living in a sort of Facebook-narrative. That's GOT to change his face-to-face interactions. Hmmnmn. Scary. Clearly 'puters and word-processing technology changed how we write. Did IM and texting change how we think? WIKI and 'copy-and-paste' sure changed how we do 'the paper I have to write.' Has PowerPoint (and all those bullets) changed how we teach and learn?  Do we sort of go through life looking for lulz? Has the glorious anarchist freedom from decorum of some subreddits or 4chan /b/ made some of us cynics? Racists? Bros?

2. Analyze and explain how it's worked to shape you.  This is personal, and stories are welcome. But finally, this is what we called part 2 of Science Studies: theorizing how techno-science works—in this case on us, intimately.

Some guiding ideas: 

1. Ideas are technologies. In fact, the whole technology / concept distinction needs to go. Absent a 'framing concept,' any technology would be incomprehensible. Think (Star Trek) about how the aliens would greet an IPhone. And technologies emerge and evolve in response to, and in sync with, evolving culture in general. Again: we are our technologies, and we need to examine the framing concepts.

2.  Embodied technology is a complex 'secret code' for us to crack.

French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu (whom I use extensively in 'Beyond the realm of reason') calls this 'culture-made-flesh' our bodily habitus: all our deeply embedded ways of moving, thinking and being. Beneath consciousness. Automatic. 'Durable dispositions.' Inaccessible to direct, conscious control. Here's Bourdieu (with apologies for the fact that he's not that clear a writer):

All groups entrust the body, treated like a kind of memory, with their most precious possessions, and the use made of the suffering inflicted on the body by rites of initiation . . . is understandable if one realizes . . . that people's adherence to an institution is directly proportional to the severity and painfulness of the rites of initiation. . . .

More convincingly than the external signs which adorn the body (like decorations, uniforms, army stripes, insignia, etc.), the incorporated signs (such as manners, ways of speaking—accents—, ways of walking or standing — gait, posture, bearing —, table manners, etc. and taste) which underlie the production of all practices aimed, intentionally or not, at signifying and at signifying social position through the interplay of distinctive differences, ... function as so many calls to order, by virtue of which those who might have forgotten . . . are reminded of the position assigned to them by the institution.

(Pierre Bourdieu. Language and symbolic power, 1991. 123-4)

The factors which are most influential in the formation of the habitus are transmitted without passing through language and consciousness, but through suggestions inscribed in the most apparently insignificant aspects of the things, situations and practices of everyday life. Thus the modalities of practices, the ways of looking, sitting, standing, keeping silent, or even of speaking (‘reproachful looks’ or ‘tones’, ‘disapproving glances’ and so on) are full of injunctions that are powerful and hard to resist precisely because they are silent and insidious, insistent and insinuating...secret code. (51)

Blog 7

I would first like to start by saying I have never taken an economics class, even in high school. So, I've only ever had a vague sense of what exactly economics entail. I felt like this book did a good job introducing this confusing topic and making it so I could understand the history and various factors that have influenced our economy today. Because the truth is we cannot learn about economics without learning about the human factors and history of how our current global market came to be. Maybe that's why traditional econ courses have never interested me, because I was always under the assumption they involved lots of math (which I detest) and memorizing different theories of market systems (which sounds like a very boring topic to learn about).

My favorite part of the book was Chapter 7 onward. Growing up, I've always heard the term "Reaganomics" and the idea of trickle down wealth. From my own research on the topic, I knew this was not a feasible economic plan but that Republicans tended to support it. Goodwin explained the history of this movement as well as linked it to some of the financial difficulties we still observe today in our economy. I tend to find modern politics interesting because many of the policies and political strife we encounter in 2018 can be traced back to origins in the 1970s-80s. This is why Chapter 7 and onward was the most enjoyable to me. While the previous portions were interesting and taught me the basic groundwork of economic thought, the modern period is what is effecting me personally right now in time. Although, I do wish Goodwin would have dedicated a portion of his book to looking at the student loan problem. This is a topic intimately linked to previous economic decisions made in the last 20 years and I believe his book is used frequently on college reading lists so the audience would definitely have been appreciative for the addition.

Brent Clanfield Post #7

While reading Economix, there are many striking things. One page that really struck me was pg. 170. This page talks about the "need to sell" for businesses is more important than the customer's need to buy. This is something I never thought of, but the comics and examples show how it makes perfect sense.

One of the examples he shows is disposable items. The "big business man" describes the disposable razors, water bottles, etc. as being convenient. Meanwhile, the average consumer questions how buying the same thing over and over is truly convenient. This is true. Disposable items are really only a convenient way of making money for businesses. We don't need disposable water bottles. Buy one Nalgeen and you're set for LIFE.

Another example is the idea that businesses sell items that are designed to become irrelevant in a few years. The main example he shows is him holding an MP3 player. Apple products are a perfect example of this. Is the iPhone 8 that much better than the iPhone 7? Not really. Yet, something about it makes you need to have it. Next year, a new iPhone will come out. There will be one small feature that is different about it that isn't really necessary, but you will have to have it. For all we know, they have the technology to make the iPhone 22, but they will slowly give us one new feature every year just to make us keep buying their phones. Smart business. Probably not the smartest way to spend money as a consumer. That said, I do love my iPhone X. Oh, and nothing is better than an ice cold bottle of Dasani.

The need to sell for businesses is infatuating, and it makes me enjoy my iPhone just as much as Goodwin is enjoying his old-school MP3 player that is extremely out-dated now.

Blog #7 Kelli Grimm

As embarrassing as it is to admit, my knowledge of economics is slim. I took an econ class six years ago in high school and quite honestly retained almost none of what I was taught. My ‘science’ brain for some reason has a hard time understanding the underpinnings of the economic world, although that could also have to do with how heavily influenced it can be by crooked politics. The comic that grabbed my attention was called Little Boxes: The Suburbs and this was largely because it related a topic I have studied in sociology known as “suburban segregation” to economics.

The suburbs were created through the mass production of housing to create a space for the working class to live without overpopulating cities. People were driven out to the suburbs through enticing subsidies of mortgages and tax breaks and it didn’t make sense for people to not follow the crowd out of cities. This shift took the base of taxes out of the cities, so to counteract this loss, funding focused on ‘driving’ people back into the cities. This was accomplished through establishing roadways and car accessibility which actually caused further expansion of cities and lead to a cycle of increasing purchases of cars, further expansion of roadways, further sprawling of cities.

Through the creation of the suburbs, a classist and racist divide was established. People were discriminated from housing due to their race largely affecting African American and minority families. While segregation is no longer legal, this still perpetuates into the housing divides today. I don’t necessarily live in a suburb, but I haven’t had a neighbor that wasn’t white for the 20 years I have lived in my neighborhood. Additionally, a class divide was established through the creation of suburbs. While suburban homes were tailored to the “working class” they were marketed to the upper middle class and left the lower classes poorer living conditions, often times in neglected intercity neighborhoods. This comic shows how social factors influence the ways in which individuals are affected by certain economic decisions and how those decisions perpetuate discrimination.

Blog #7 - Syeda

Reading Economix, pages 249-254 struck a chord.

“Despite years of scandals and political corruption, despite the stream of stories of personal greed and pirate of Gucci scamming the treasury, despite the retreat from the public sphere and the turn toward private privilege, despite squalor for the poor and gated communities for the rich, the great mass of Americans have not yet given up on the idea of ‘we, the people’... it's as if the clock has been rolled back to the early 60s, before Vietnam and Watergate took such a toll.” -Bill Moyers, journalist (October 2001).

“The military spending got a justification when Iraq, which had nothing to do with September 11, was declared an immediate threat.”

I felt vindicated. Growing up, again in a Muslim household, I often held a more diverse, broader worldview than my average classmate. I’ve been ridiculed for my religion, I’ve been teased for the place I happened to be born--during that war, I felt like the enemy. I felt like the enemy in my own country while I learned simple addition and simple subtraction. I’ve grown up with the subconscious need to justify my existence. “Not all Muslims are terrorists.” Well of-fricking-course they’re not. A Muslim has every right to be here like any Christian or Jew or Hindu or anyone else. I don’t need to fit the ‘white American” bill to be an American, and this really doesn’t need to be said anymore. I’ve been done needing to explain myself, so this should suffice. After all, the burden of proof is on the accuser. I also have Iraqi peers and acquaintances who have lost esteemed family members (doctors and politicians) to the US military in cold blood because every Iraqi became an enemy. So I often question if the men and women ever knew what they were fighting for. This war--this political and economic plot rather--certainly has been a defining, life-changing common denominator in the young American Muslim’s life. So that being said, you can see why I feel vindicated. Operation Iraqi Freedom really wasn’t ever a war on terror, but instead, just another form of flexing the US’s imperialistic muscles and a way to escape problems brewing at home, even if it cost the ~1 million Iraqi lives, 4,500 US servicemens’, and the stability of an entire region. And I’m sure that the US government could foresee all of this. ‘We want control of this land and we *might* make its inhabitants angry by killing their family members, so hmm an insurgency might happen...’ Anyone with a half a rat’s ass could anticipate this. I know I sound bitter, and I wasn’t joking when I said this struck a chord, but when a large part of my identity comes from always feeling the need (in the past) to justify my existence, particularly because of this time in US policy, it’s beyond relieving to see something I’ve known for so long be explained in a way that doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a conspiracy theorist. It sounds valid, certainly no doubt in part due to the excellent, accessible comic book medium that Goodwin chose. Normally, I’d be opposed to such vibrant animations that predispose readers to certain feelings, like the dislike you feel when you see a mischievous uncle Sam or the cold, looming corporations, but in the context of the Iraq war or even US economic policy in general where the US populace has seemingly been brainwashed and lied to time and time again, I think it becomes a powerful and almost necessary tool to effectively communicate the alternate perspective--and that, I feel it does wonderfully, making it an excellent intervention.

Blog #7 - Brittney McLaughlin

I hate economics. I really struggled through my economics class in high school, and I've avoided any in college. I think that this is because I don't really understand any of it, and don't really have a desire to. I already have a million other things to worry about, I don't want to spend my time worrying about the impending collapse of our economy followed by the destruction of mankind. So, as difficult as it was for me to work through Economix, I can appreciate the humor and can't deny that I've come out of it feeling a bit more educated and wanting to pick a fight with a Carlson student.

I think the chapter that I found to be the most interesting was chapter 7, partially because I love that Goodwin acknowledges that his book is about to get controversial, but mostly because this section discusses a topic that I've been unsure of for a while: the inequality of wealth in America. Should we raise taxes? Lower them? Tax the rich more than the poor? The 2016 presidential election was the first that I could vote in, and as I tried to "pick a side", these were some of the opinions I had to consider. I really struggled here - I could see pros and cons for each side. Chapter 7, though, talks a lot about taxes. When Reagan raised taxes (a typically liberal view), the rich were actually the ones benefiting. While it is my understanding that the "liberal" side believes in higher taxes in order to use the money from the rich to take care of the poor, Reagan's order resulted in the rich being the only people to benefit. Obviously - this isn't helping me answer my questions. I still find it incredibly interesting, though. When it comes to politics, I've always thought of there being this two drastically different sides, although a person could fall anywhere in the middle. Chapter 7 specifically made me realize how much more confusing this political ideology really is. If one side gets their way, are they really ever going to be happy with it? Is it ever going to actually benefit themselves/others in the way they intended? It seems that there is always going to be this give-and-take, where even if one side "loses out" on a debate, they're still going to gain something pretty big from it. Why, then, are we so concerned with choosing sides when it comes to politics?

Blog #7 Economix

Michael Goodwin's book "Economix" is one my favorite books on the history of Economics. The book works like a Beatles song in that, on the surface they both can seem quite simple and straightforward. However, as you dig deeper you discover an incredible richness and lots of nuance. Perhaps that is one of the sure signs of mastery; to make the difficult look easy and to present something rich, complicated and multi-layered in a simple, easy to digest, readily accessible format.
Goodwin's book does an excellent job of showing us how we in America came to be a mixed economy. He also does an excellent job of laying out the economic policies and subsequent successes and failures of Socialism, 20th century political dictatorships, Keynesian economics and the laissez faire economic policies of Hayek, Mises and Milton Friedman.
The graphics really helped to compliment the narrative and to show the yin to yang historically pendulous swing of America's political and economic beliefs and policies.
Goodwin's section and chapter titles are excellent: "The Money Power (1865-1914)", "The Prophets of Liberty: Hayek and Friedman" and,  "The Revolt of the Rich (1980-2001)" do an excellent job of presenting powerfully compressed snapshots of key eras including their emerging technologies, political systems and consequently, economic policies. His "little guy" narrator functions quite effectively as an omniscient tour guide through the various trials and errors of  economic philosophies, practices and policies.