Part 38 (1/2)
So new Even Shakespeare criticized lawyers Far fro a wholesale attack on the profession, the description I have given deserves to be contrasted to the possibility of effective judicial es occur so rapidly, the law of yesterday rarely applies to new circumstances created today It used to be, people often find the, that laws and rules (the Ten Commandments, at least) were expected to last and be respected, in their letter-which was carved in stone-and spirit, forever No one will argue that justice is not an eternal desideratu it does not necessarily mean that laws and the methods of lawyers are eternal Some actions that society once accepted-child abuse, sexual harassal, as well as unjust
Other cri one's spouse in public, working or operating a business on Sunday) al books and locally observed, but they are no longer considered instances of law- breaking The result of changes brought about by changing pragmatics is the realization people have that there is no stable frame of reference, either for morality (as it is subject to law and law enforceality
Did lawyers create this situation? Are they a product of new hues the legal system in order to determine that its activity meets expectations? There is no simple answer to any of these questions If justice is to affect human practical experiences, it has to reflect their nature and participate in defining its own perspective in respect to the rights that people integrate in new practical experiences of self-definition It is all well and good for the legal system to use non-literate al information from around the world via Internet But if they are then subjected to literate pettifogging, all this effort is to no avail
The programmed parliament
Politics in action means not elections but the daily routine of hard work on matters of interest to the people represented
Party affiliation aside, in the end the coislative political work continues a tradition that goes well beyond literacy
Nevertheless, effective legislation becamatic framework that made literacy necessary Once literacy itself reached its potential, new islative practical experience beca force is the expectation that the legislative process should reflect practical needs ee over shorter patterns of recurrence As within the entire political practical experience, forces at work continuously collide
Although literacy-based perspectives and er appropriate in handling issues and concerns stematics that invalidates the literateto realize the need for change They find it islate improved literacy- based education, for exa education in the context of its necessity They accept the eneralized network of inforra in the literate practice of politics It is hard to believe that in an age of li for the raress It is also hard to believe that a language rooted in experiences established a long tio, and many ti overn the activity of islative bodies (not only in Great Britain, where this legacy translates into a dress code as outmoded as the British monarchy) As with the executive political experience and the infatuation of justice, symbolism overtakes substance
Nevertheless, under the pressure for higher efficiency, islative practical experiences, as disconnected as they are from new human practical experiences, are less and less an exercise in convincing writing or in forlobality and often apply mediation, task distribution, and interactivity
Electronicis applied, si infor task of accu data Consultants and staff e filters in order to involve in the political process only information pertinent to the subject Politicians know that knowledge, at the right tiht context, is power Their new experience, as members of computerized parliaments of many countries can testify, is that everyone has the data, but only fe to process it effectively In fact, political parties develop coive politicians pursuing their goals uislative vote The transparency brought about by means in the civilization of illiteracy ensures public access to the debate
The coent use of data
Power, that elusive aspect of any political activity, comes from the ability to process, not from the amount of information stored
All this, kept at a ht sound like anticipation, or dreams for the politician of the future
It is not The process is probably still at the beginning, but unavoidable It will sooner or later affect such components as time in office-permanence of a representative reflects literacy-based expectations- procedures for public evaluation, candidacy, and voting It will also require a rethinking of the relation between politicians and constituents Rethinking the iti pursued Increased mediation affects the connection between facts and political action Unless balanced by the use of the new means of communication that allow personal interaction with each voter, it will continue to alienate politics fro of the past-not because television is overridden by the Internet, but because of the need to create a framework for individual motivation for political action Political efficiency is based on human interaction What counts is not the e, but what is accoislative framework that reflects the new nature of humatic contextto the civilization of illiteracy Consolidation of bureaucracy is as counter-indicative of this understanding as is the continuation of the monarchy and the House of Lords in Great Britain Both these phenoeneration of electoral letters that report on how the political representative best served his or her constituency A sense of the process, as it involves the need to overcome models based on sequentiality, dualism, and deterministic reaction, can be realized only when the political process itself is synchronized with the prevalent pragmatics
A battle to be won
As a practice of building, changing, and destroying coalitions, politics today is a sun strategies for coalition implementation and identify the most effective interactions for a certain policy
They develop their own language and criteria for evaluating the efficiency of their specialized practice and of theirfunction in a society of many and varied forms of mediation
The obsession with efficiency, whether applied to politics or not, is not imposed by forces outside ourselves The tendency to transfer responsibility does not result in some curse spoken by a disappointed politician, philosopher, or educator The shorter political cycles that we encounter correspond to the dynamics of a human practical experience focused on the ilobal existence It seems that the transition is fro for continuity and per individuals, whose identity itself is variable, prepared to experience discontinuity and change Coordinations of actions in this universe are no longer possible through large integrative e and bureaucratic institutions
S operations, in the nature of coalitions tested through polling or electronic balloting, and e of political roles, represent an alternative
Monarchies e monarchs were supposed to outlast the monarch The 15- a metaphor in some parts of the world, is as relevant as any other form of celebrity (Warhol's included), since political processes and power relations are more and more uncoupled from each other and disconnected from the obsession with universality and timelessness A 15-minute coalition is as critical as access to power, and as useful as the new principles accepted by the people involved Instead of the top- down model of politics, we can experience a combination of bottom-up and top-down procedures Under these circu of coalitions re very few valid political functions The centers of political power- econoroups-constitute poles around which such coalitions are established or abandoned
One should ask whether such coalitions do not coe of literacy Literacy is defended with the argument that it is some kind of common denominator What is not accounted for is the fact that coalitions are not independent of the medium of their expression Literacy-based coalitions pursue and further goals and actions consistent with the pragmatic framatic context incompatible with the structures imposed by literacy-based practical experiences require othercoalitions When the leaders of thethe value of their currency, or when friend and foe establish a political coalition against an invasion that could set a precedent and trigger consequences for the global econoht take the appearance of literacy In fact, these means are freed froe fro and simulation of behavior in financial markets, virtual reality scenarios turned into actions for which no script could provide a description in advance While politicians ht still perform their script in a literate manner, the centers of power choose theeach new coalition As a consequence, and this is a distinguishi+ng element, there is little connection between the authority of political institutions, as it results from their literate prematics of the civilization of illiteracy
The sense of beginning experienced in our day goes well beyond the new states, new politicalIt is basically a beginning for the new zoon politikon, for a political animal that has lost most of its natural roots and whose human nature is probably better defined in terms of political instincts than cultural accoe discarded People siotiate their existence without political means appropriate to a social condition structurally different from that experienced in the past The self-centered individual cannot escape relating to others and defining himself in reference to theestive title (conceived by Earl Babble) for an article on Internet interaction, but a good description of today's political world The specific for theical and cognitive redefinition of the hu, is possible and indeed acceptable, the political anioals without facing the risk of losing identity This is probably the decisive political battle that the humans have yet to win
”Theirs not to reason why”
High precision electronic eyes placed on orbiting satellites picked up the firing of the rocket and the launch parameters
Data was trans The co tira of a vast, distributed, highly interconnected configuration- incorporates expertise froe encoded in software designed to calculate rocket orbits (based on launch tiical conditions), fast trans devices