Poetic Moralities: Agency and Humanism
Morality is ambiguous, malleable and pure.
Like an expertly crafted and socially reflexive piece of art,
A construct, no doubt, and master manipulator of the heart.
Built through action and interaction,
Morality is linked with power,
And power craves technology in more ways than one,
But I’ve barely begun.
Does our ability to construct and articulate our repugnance,
Lay a hand in how we evolve?
To become better people,
What must we do?
To absolve, to resolve and not devolve on cue?
Must we follow the path set in front of us here today,
Or scream for equality and empathy for not just me, but for you?
Do we decide our own fate?
Is it even worth the try?
When hindsight and insight might not provide enough for us to rewrite?
For those all-powerful narratives, burn through the veins of humanity,
And determining what is right is at the core of our individual reality.
…But I digress.
Media ecologies house active parties, yes,
But the power of social actors lurking can also impress.
You want me to argue about an ethereal state of affairs,
But honestly, sometimes it feels like only part of the population chooses to care.
It’s not a conversation about Gods,
Or even the ‘powers that be’.
Instead the discourse falls to social responsibilities, accountabilities,
And the all-encompassing subjective clause.
If we take the legacy of technology and split it three ways equally:
We see the intent of the creator to create change,
We see the behaviour of the user to flourish,
We see the perceptions of the onlooker to make sense of the strange.
But more than our thoughts,
Our voices carry weight.
We throw public figures to the wolves,
As though they are something other than human,
While we sit behind screens engaged in debate.
And then there are times where our judgements become blurred,
As more and more information is added,
It gets harder to determine,
Because ultimately nothing is certain.
Whether it’s the light or the dark,
Or maybe the grey area in between,
Morality is shaped messily,
Packaged neatly like an antihistamine.
But the aim to relieve provides an interesting misnomer,
Since morality always puts something or someone else as The Other.
To the question of whether technology Helps to develop or squander morality and our armour,
You must consider, first and foremost, one’s intent and desire.
Because mediums encourage growth, whether it’s a weed or a flower,
And meanings have the opportunity to devour or empower.
For technology brings with it the good and the bad,
But somewhere down the line, a nomad becomes a comrade.
Though the mediums can look like hellscapes, I’m sure,
Perceptions are everything, and just like always, humans might be the cure.
Sneaking and hiding just out of reach and in plain sight,
Is the knowledge that it will take all of us to fight.
End.
The beauty of media ecology — and any euphemism one uses to describe our relationship with technology — is a discussion rooted in what affordances are given to technology and mediums symbolically and literally. The poem above opens with the ambiguity of morality, but similarly, media ecologies are riddled with undefined sentiment.
Borges (1999) contends that there are issues around the separation of non-self and self. In this way, I agree with the proposed explicit dichotomy between technology and humans being a subpar explanation. That is, in thinking about the relationship between the two, and if we consider everything as sociocultural constructs on a very foundational level, then it is fair to validate the notion that this is all a game of critical responses to human behaviour and need. The medium and our use of any medium are therefore symbiotic and almost cyclical.
This pattern is expressed in the way our response to a medium can shift the medium itself, and in turn, how we can be influenced by technology (Robinson 2019). Ultimately, the meaning behind the message which is the moral capacity of any given technology must be considered in our ability to understand and present knowledge. When McLuhan (1967) popularised Postman’s (2000) petri dish metaphor for media ecologies and proposed the aphorism, the medium is the message, an interesting paradigm arose. Both the medium and the message are important, and if we consider assumptions, unexpected outcomes, socio-cultural differences and other external influences, the message then becomes dynamic and intra- and inter-personal.
It is then possible to note that perception is a determining factor. Our capacity to understand the media and the medium, use them to our advantage, and evolve through the use technology, results in the idea that the medium acts as an extension of ourselves. Thus, coming from a qualitative standpoint, the issue with confining our categorisation of technology as entirely non-human is somewhat redundant. Further, Stephens (2014) argues that even limiting academic discourse through metaphors is problematic because it misses some of the complexities of human relationships that play out “among humans, our cultures and technologies, and the more-than-human world.”
Interestingly, Strate (2018) introduces the metaphor ‘the medium is the membrane’ by drawing heavily on McLuhan and Postman to note that a medium is a system, and key part of a system is to differentiate from the environment is exists within. They suggest that while media can act as an extension of the world, so too can it sever ties with it.
If the systems are contradictory, then one could suggest that the question of whether technology is moral or ethical is a different inference than asking if technology has influence over such concepts. The former advocates an almost sentient response from an arguably non-human entity. The latter, on the other hand, suggests that when used as a tool, technology can impact moral negotiations. Within this is an implicit understanding that morality, as a colloquial construct, is not static and entirely dependent of sociality, communities of practice and our ability to express and share our values.
*Written for CIM402 — Critical Inquiry — SAE Institute. Blog Task 4, Part A
References
Borges, J. L. (1999). The nothingness of personality. In E. Weinberger (Ed.), Selected non-fictions (pp. 3–9). New York, New York: Viking.
Mcluhan, M. (1967). The medium is the massage. Bantam Books.
Postman, N. (2000). The humanism of media ecology. Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association, 1, 10– 16.
Robinson, N. (2019). Performances and publics while watching and live-streaming video games on Twitch.tv. MPhil Thesis: University of Melbourne.
Stephens, N. P. (2014). Toward a More Substantive Media Ecology: Postman’s Metaphor Versus Posthuman Futures. International Journal of Communication, 8, 2027–2045.
Strate, L. (2018). The Medium Is the Membrane. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 75(3/4), 307–316.
