Hybrid Assignment 9 – S.Jeannot
On one side we have the New Left, who wanted to change the politics of the country completely. They too did not believe in a hierarchy or a “top-down flow of power” but they did believe that political action was necessary to see their civil rights and free speech movements of the time succeed. The New Left organized for political change which is a contrast from what we know about the New Communalists. Also, they used protests and demonstrations against industrial activities, bureaucratic organization of the universities and the Vietnam War.
Norbert Weiner’s definition of cybernetics as stated in the chapter is “a field focused on the ‘study of messages as a means of controlling machinery and society.'” Weiner also said that cybernetics “suggested that digital processes might lead to a malevolent automation of human and biological processes.”(2006:23) Cybernetics is a “transdisciplinary approach exploring regulatory systems, their structures, constraints, and possibilities.” (Wikipedia)
When looking at this definition at first I could not figure out how the “cybernetic vision of the world” correlated with what the New Communalists wanted. Then I looked it as not just technology, but processes and systems.
So on the other side we have New Communalists, or hippies as they were also known as, and they wanted to use a collaborative process where there was no hierarchy. Most of them wanted to go in places across America where they could create communes and live without the politics of the times. New Communalists saw politics as the problem that was effecting the country at the time. They wanted a less violent society and did not trust politicians or any form of hierarchy at all. They believed that the mind could produce the ideals that they wanted in this country and go into, what Charles Reich called, Consciousness III where “citizens would serve as examples to one another; the communities in turn would serve as examples to the world.” (2006:37) Basically, the individual’s information can be passed from person to person similar to how cybernetics works within a system or process.
