The Oscillation Thing

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The Oscillation Thing

• Criticizing Lakoff Johnson's
• metaphor theory
•  

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Kortste definitie Lakoff ( Johnson?)
metafoortheorie

• Metafoor is het begrijpen/uitdrukken van het ene
  (in het target domain) in termen van iets anders
  (uit het source domain)

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Sterke kanten

• 1. Elegant en eenvoudig analytisch model van
  source target domain (highlighting
  downplaying, representatie/depresentatie, zonder
  beroep op waarheid/werkelijkheid)
• 2. Notie van 'correspondence mapping' voorbij
  linguistische categorieën (substitutie,
  gelijkenis, vergelijking, analogie, metonymie)
• 3. Uitgangspunt van samenhang taal, denken en
  handelen (i.t.t. focus op woord, zin, disocurse
  of pragmatiek)
• 4. Voorbij de kwestie letterlijk-figuurlijk
  (waarheid/waarde vs denkbeeldig, vgl. 'het is
  maar een metafoor')

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Bedenkingen

• 1. Metaphors we live by neiging tot zoeken naar
  universele inhoudelijke conceptuele metaforen
  ('grounded in bodily experience')
• 2. Focus op conceptuele/cognitieve samenhang
  ('opgesloten in het hoofd' als verklaring i.p.v.
  datgene wat verklaard moet worden)

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Naomi Klein, The Vision Thing
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Analogy with the Internet

• intricately and tightly linked
• as hotlinks connect their websites
• facilitates shapes the movement in its own
  image
• sparse bureaucracy and hierarchy
• organic, decentralised, interlinked pathways of
  the Internet
• the Internet come to life

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• TARGET DOMAIN political organising
• no clear leadership and followers
• disparate campaigns, scattered, non-lineair
• convergence, shared belief, emerging consensus
• hybrid pattern of dispersal and convergence
• intricately and tightly linked to one another

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• SOURCE DOMAIN The Internet
• hybrid pattern of dispersal and convergence
• hotlinks, websites and connections
• intricately and tightly linked to one another
• as hotlinks connect their websites to the
  Internet
• hotlinks subject/object displacement
  condensation

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More than coincidental

• Not only a tool, it is also shaping the
  movement in its own image
• sparse bureaucracy, minimal hierarchy, loose
  information swapping
• The image of the Internet shapes the movement
• Internet is shaping the image the movement has of
  itself

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From tool to mirror

• mirrors the organic, decentralised, interlinked
  pathways of the Internet -- the Internet come to
  life
• from a tool it has become a mirror, and the
  mirror subsequently becomes a shaping machine

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Metaphors are actors

• Metaphors are oscillating actors between moving
  domains
• Metaphors (re)construct the target as well as
  the source domain

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Kritiek/uitbreiding op Lakoff

• 1. Moving domains domain constructie achteraf
  i.pv. stabiel vooraf verondersteld
• 2. Oscillaties metaforische-metonymisch,
  subject-object, cause-effect, tool-mirror
• 3. Meer focus op materiëel bestaan,
  productiviteit, labour en transformaties van en
  door metaphors-in-action
• 4. Living metaphors more fuzzy and situated,
  neem serious en letterlijk

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Vragen

• 1.) Fuzzy Oscillation Principle i.p.v. Invariance
  Principle?
• 2.) Tool/mirror oscillatie
• Vergelijkbaar met Lakoff's dualisme
  'hebben/zijn'? Image scheme mirror?
• Generaliseerbaar naar nieuwe media metaforen in
  het algemeen (b.v. cyberspace, open source idem)
  Technologische metaforen in het algemeen?
  Science-metaphors?
• Wellicht zelfs universeel mechanisme in alle
  metaforen-in-actie?

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Depresented unused parts 1

• Protocols agreements carved in software which
  regulates how data streams flow along the
  channels
• The Internet is a set of nested and layered
  protocols
• TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
  Protocol)
• small data packets
• direct to destination
• reassemble on arrival
• non-hierarchical, horizontal
• unique IP-number
• different routes

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Depresented unused parts 2

• Other protocols on top of TCP/IP
• HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) to browse
  websites
• SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to send mail
  
• DNS-protocol (Domain Name System) to translate
  domain names to IP-numbers
• FTP, et cetera
• Servers and clients!
• Web servers, web clients mail servers, mail
  clients etc
• We are clients who pay a subscription fee
• We use clients (application programs)

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Nested and layered protocols

• TCP/IP structurally non-hierarchical
• Other protocols hierarchical client-server
  architecture
• Client-server split is a material division of
  labour
• an asymmetrical division of power and control
• Bureaucracy is translated into protocological
  infrastructure
• Hierarchy is translated into the client-server
  architecture

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Distributed network topologies

• A distributed computer system is an application
  that consists of components running on different
  computers concurrently
• (web page client-server, bricolage, DNS, TCP/IP
  etc)
• Distributedness does not by itself imply anything
  about hierarchy, centralisation or
  decentralisation

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P2P file sharing systems

• files not stored on a central server
• downloading directly from other clients/peers
• good old P2P, purely decentralised?

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P2P file sharing systems

• no direct channel of transmission between peers
• routing of the files must always pass along
  providers servers
• P2P parasitical layer
• You are what you use

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Conclusions

• In what regards can the new political organising
  be conceptualised as analogies of the Internet?
• protocols and topologies?
• depresented local centralities, hierarchies?
• clients and servers?
• P2P-networking? parasitic peers?
• Mark Poster Tool -gt social space -gt subjects
• Tool -gt mirror -gt shaping thing -gt subject/objects