I was very taken with the Liu piece and would have wanted to really consider his question: “what ethical foundation enables identities to live in an un-networked and counter-informational fantasy within the spirit of informationalism?” (p. 71, P 2) Because that is really the question that kept coming to my mind as I read the second half of the piece.
Starting this chapter, as he did, with subject work and New Criticism, indicates that the humanities contributed their share to this Teamwork-corporate ideology — or perhaps it’s more accurate to say they are not completely outside the digital-information era zeitgeist themselves. Of course I do have faith in the humanities and arts, or I wouldn’t be here, but to say we are “informed by history” seems a bit too easy, if history, like culture is potentially just more grist for the mill, more programming content, more bits. I’m sure Liu explores this in the rest of his book, which I intend to add to my reading list for the future.
I had some more thoughts on this, which I was going to bring up in class, but I’m sick. Sorry to have missed this discussion.
