Hacking the System: The Immanance of a Life in PostKatrina Louisiana or Race, Poverty, Health,

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Hacking the SystemThe Immanance of a Lifein
Post-Katrina LouisianaorRace, Poverty, Health,
Education Dynamics Exposed

• M. Jayne Fleener
• Louisiana State University
• A Response to
• Jacques Daignault
• Hacking the Future

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Technology

• Cultural Industry (Adorno?)
• Stealing our capacity to imagine
• Relation to consumer society
• Symbolic Divide and 3rd Memory (Steigler)
• ? Postmans Technopoly

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Metaphor of Platos Phaedrus

• For people such as ourselves, who are inclined
  to be tools of our tools.
• Thamus, the king of a great city in Upper Egypt,
  discussing writing with the god Theuth who
  invented writing, number, calculation, geometry
  and astonomy

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Technology of Writing

• Theuth - Writing is the recipe for memory and
  wisdom.
• Thamus
• Discoverer not the best judge of the good or harm
• Those who exercise the technology will cease to
  exercise memory the technology is a receipt for
  recollection, not for memory
• As for memory quantity of information and
  appearance of wisdom lead to conceit and those
  who think they have wisdom become a burden to
  society

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Technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not
of science.

• Paul Goodman as quoted in
• Neil Postmans
• Technopoly The Surrender of Culture to Technology

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No neutral technologies Knowledge monopolies
create a kind of conspiracy against those who
have no access to the specialized knowledge.
(Harold Innis Communication Studies)
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In a discipline society,to be free is to get
outIn a control societyto be free is to get in

• Jacques Daignault
• Para-phrasing Steigler

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Challenging Authority
Hacking
Disobedience
Disrupting
Creating
Possibility keepers
Engaging in the conversation
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ContextSouth Louisiana
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Louisiana Context Before Katrina

• Highest in the nation in percent of adults
  incarcerated
• 3rd Highest in the nation in percent of juveniles
  incarcerated
• Highest in the nation in per capita murders
• Highest percentage of families with children
  headed by a single-parent
• Highest percentage of senior citizens with income
  less than 50 of the poverty level
• Source U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population
  Survey, March 1999, 2000, and 2001.

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• Highest percentage of kids without health
  insurance
• Highest state in the nation in percent of
  children living in poverty
• Second highest of children in families where
  the parents have NO full-time employment the
  entire year (34 average over a three year
  period)
• Second Highest percent of low birth-weight babies
  in the nation. (10.3)
• Overall ranking for positive childrens
  issuessecond lowest in the nation

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• Of the 50 States and the District of Columbia,
  Louisiana leads the nation in having the highest
  percent of people 65 Years and over below 150
  percent of the poverty level, with 37.1.
• Source U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population
  Survey, March 1999, 2000, and 2001.

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CHAOS Hurricane Katrina
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NEW-ORLEANS
2005
ETUDE
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Complexity
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EmergenceEnergyLifeFar From Equilibrium
Dynamics
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• The loss of life and property damage was worsened
  by breaks in the levees that separate New Orleans
  from surrounding lakes. At least 80 of New
  Orleans was under flood water on August 31st,
  largely as a result of levee failures from Lake
  Pontchartrain. The combination of strong winds,
  heavy rainfall and storm surge led to breaks in
  the earthen levee after the storm passed, leaving
  some parts of New Orleans under 20 feet of water.

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• A major economic impact for the nation was the
  disruption to the oil industry from Katrina.
  Preliminary estimates from the Mineral Management
  Service suggest that oil production in the Gulf
  of Mexico was reduced by 1.4 million barrels per
  day (or 95 of the daily Gulf of Mexico
  production) as a result of the hurricane.

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LA Students Teachers

• 186,565 public school students displaced
• 61,000 private school students displaced
• Eight parishes had major damage
• 7,865 teachers in effected public schools
• 1,700 certified staff
• 7,022 support workers

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A life is everywhere,in all the moments that a
given living subject goes through an immanent
life carrying with itthe events or
singularitiesthat are merely actualizedin
subjects and objects
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This indefinite life does not itself have
moments but only in-between times,between-momen
ts The singularitiesand the events
thatconstitute a lifecoexist with the
accidents of the life that corresponds to it
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One is always theindex of a multiplicityan
event,a singularity,a life
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What we call virtualis not something that lacks
realitybut something that isengaged in a
processof actualization following the
planethat gives it its particular reality
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The immanent event is actualized in a state of
thingsand of the livedthat make it happen

• Gilles Deleuze
• Pure Immanence
• Essays on A Life
• Excerpts from pp. 28-31

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What are our between-moments?Our indices of
multiplicities?Our virtualities?
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How do we maintain hope?Create hope?Protect
against turbulance?Engage turbulance?Synergize
change?
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If you think about it,you will see that it is
true.