Saturday 29 September 2007
Doug Rushkoff on the Technologies of Persuasion ☀
- Jon Lebkowsky: In my recent Worldchanging interview with Paul Hawken and Bill McKibben, we were talking about how to transform the way people think. Some want to do this through policy, others through culture. I think the idea of "rewriting the rules" is what we were getting at, what a lot of us are thinking about, and an important theme here at Worldchanging. It's hard to change the rules when they both emerge from and reinforce a particular context – we assume a real and inflexible reality and don't necessary see, past our blinders, what we can transform. In closing, can you point to any successful instances of transformation by "changing the rules"?
- Doug Rushkoff: The Israelites vanquishing the Egyptian gods, escaping a death cult, and using the new medium of text to write their own laws. That was a great example. It worked really well for a while, too, but literacy was much too limited, and its implications didn't really trickle down to the entirety of the people.
- Reality Hackers (the early Mondo 2000) attempted to show people how tools like computers, networks, and plant hallucinogens are also capable of opening the rule sets to tinkering. Even just recognizing that there are rules in place is a huge step in the right direction.
- But then the object of the game is not simply to scrawl graffiti on the existing rules (Adbusters style) but to get in there and change the very premise of the game. And this takes some myth-smashing.
- The easiest way to start is to socialize with real people in real spaces. When it's just you and other people, many of the existing rules no longer apply. It's not about buying and selling, or "getting what you need" from someone. It's a real encounter from which an entirely new awareness can emerge.
