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THE NEW MULTITUDE. “In this formulation, I draw upon the work of Pablo Virno, who states: “the contemporary multitude is composed neither of “citizens” nor “producers”; it occupies a middle region between individual and collective, for the multitude, then, the distinction between “public” and “private” is no way validated.” The multitude then offers a powerful vision that smashes the exhausted but endemic individual-collective binary that haunts the study of memory.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

A rare luxury in Lockdown World to go to a real concert (Jupiter and Pathétique, both the last symphonies of Mozart and Tchaikovsky. View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this small sampling of a much larger chapter by Professor Andrew Hoskins. In my view, it is a remarkably insightful portrayal of the wrenching social changes the digital age is foisting at breakneck speed on us, our children, and (sadly) our politics. Personally, I find it is all happening too quickly with too little wise commentary to wrap my arms around these events, from flash mobs to the ubiquitous screen. This author is a great start to figuring it out a bit better. View in LinkedIn

WITHOUT END. “The multitude appears as stronger than previous collectives as it is afforded carte blanche to keep the ‘conversation’ going: there is literally no ending.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

THE RULE OF THE MOB. “The memory of the multitude softens history, changing the parameters of the who, when, what and why of remembering. With digital searching, accessing, participating, there is little unseen, untouched or uncommented upon by the multitude. This has diminished the former gatekeepers of memory, as David Lowenthal observes: “No longer what elites and experts tell us what it was, the past becomes what Everyman chooses to accept as true.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

INFINITE NAKEDNESS. “The former self, its lives and lovers, all become entangled in digital databases that without conscience betray the wild exigencies of youth, not in unguarded gossip, but in perpetuity. As Jaron Lanier suggests: “A ‘Facebook generation’ young person who suddenly becomes humiliated online has no way out for there is only one hive.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

THE TRAP. “Hyperconnectivity, then, for all its infinite extensionality, is actually strangely reductive. Our shadow archives grow by the second, with social media exerting a ‘residual abundance’: a digital and digitized gravitational pull that seems counter-intuitive to the pronouncements of the acceleration of life lived online.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

THE UGLY CITY. “Today, the Twitter fuel of instantaneity destroys the relative privacy of intimate sociality that once enabled the opportunity for second thoughts. Adam Gopnik, for example, argues this is not “newly unleashed anger but what we all think in the first order, and have always in the past socially restrained if only thanks to the look on the listener’s face -- the monstrous music that runs through our minds is now played out loud.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

THE AUTHENTIC VILLAGE. “The modern self has been traditionally protected by the calming absorption of a trusted and intimate collective --importantly small in number -- and by the emotional dissipation of chronological time.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn

LOSS OF MIDDLE GROUND. “Rather, since around 2005, the multitude has vacated the centre ground, with all the most ugly and irrational in human thought aroused through rage and dismay thriving in the polarizing virality of social networking.” https://lnkd.in/dWiV2eZ View in LinkedIn