I was telling someone the other day that I am a good participant. I know how to jump into a situation and contribute in a way that is sensitive to the ambient flows that are happening at the same time as clearly manifesting a unique set of contributing flows. Perhaps a bit too conservative in respecting the paths of those ambient flows, but it’s probably better to be slightly more conservative than liberal. Uhh, such loaded terms. Useless words after they are so distorted by socio-politics of certain cultural configurations. Although it is ironic to note that here in Australia their political meaning is in (antipodal) opposition. Which simply emphasizes the idiocy of politics (as Peter Tosh observed once: Politics, “poli” means people, “ticks” are parasites, politics, parasites on the people). Words, language, always tends to go through this reification process. Followed by a morphing process when the reified language becomes overwhelmed when attempting to explicate new situations or when circumscribing known situations with a different point-of-view. The reified structures will be bolstered and protected until usage simply makes them redundant.
When slipping into an unknown (participatory) situation, immersing, the senses are in full-open configuration to read potential threats, opportunities, and possible pathways of expression. A process of extremely rapid differential comparison of patterns of flow occurs. In the subset of those situations that may be defined as having socio-cultural frameworks present, there is an explicit search within the Self for existing protocols of behavior — an awareness of resonant regions where known protocols have been internalized previously as emphatic neural patterns, and an awareness of dissonant points where protocols are unrecognized, unformed, or, literally, without meaning. What the hell is going on here?
Participation is a crucial role in any social system. As the reciprocal action to the projection of structured (participatory) situations by an Other, participation is half of a whole. It is in relation to the applied and, by nature, limited (imposed, proffered) situation. Without participation, a participatory social framework is no source of energy/power to be projected outward in fulfillment of the goals of the wider social system. Participation, whether understood to be explicit or implicit, is a tacit acknowledgment that the goals of the social system are acceptable to the participant. It also provides the system with its primary energy source in the form of the (attentive) life-time/life-energy of the participant.
On a side note, this is one of the weakest points in the deployment of numerous online playgrounds. Much thought is put into user-interface design, and the protocols of participation, but little is given to the actuality of there needing to be a set of active participants available and willing to put their life-energy into that particular protocol. A well-designed system of protocols, one that resonates with participants at the same time as allowing sufficient degrees of expressive freedom (from those existing protocols) will attract users. It appears that the algorithm-hunters at FaceBook are quite adept and put their highest goal to simply keep the user in FaceBook, whatever it takes. Stripped of artifice and pretense, it is a Machiavellian strategy, but one that makes total sense. All roads lead to Rome: good for the Roman Empire.
Take, for example the idea of sharing a photograph online. If one examines the layered protocols that exist and, in a very real way, direct the flows of energy. First there is the scene to be photographed. There is a set of energy flows available within that situation — which actually constitute the situation. The eye receives a sub-set of those energies, based on the evolutionary protocols of the eye. The brain senses a range of resonances and dissonances of affect of that impinging energy. Based on those reactions, combined with the awareness of a pre-existing concept of taking a photograph, one picks up the techno-socially constructed device called a camera. A small room with a hole on one side. The room (in this era) is a small and complex compilation of energy pathways which allow control of the hole and of the Light energy entering the hole from the outside. The complexity of the cumulative pathways are defined by a tremendous range of interlocking protocols developed by the Techno-Social system. Industrial standards are an expression of one level of the protocols along with basic social standards (which are the substance of the social system!) which accrete as a system (of human relation) evolves. The Light energy entering the hole is convolved with this set of pathways (through the CCD at the back of the room and a data transmission/storage system, etc — one can breakdown the system into numerous sub-systems each with a related set of quite rigid protocols-of-production). It is useful to keep in mind that the originary energy apprehended from the phenomenal scene has initiated this entire process and though it is reduced through the action of the protocols, it is still present (in another form if you need that material metaphor).
Compressing the numerous iterations of the step-wise process for the sake of brevity, the image file is transferred to a server which is connected to other connected devices which allows for an Other to receive the reduced trace of that originary energy.
It cannot be underestimated the affect on the originary flow of energy phenomena that the complex layering of protocols applies by the time the final radiation reaches the eyes of the Other. Without doing an in-depth study of all the device(s) involved in the process, it may not seem so overwhelming, but indeed, each sub-system and sub-sub-system has an entire prescribed set of protocols which precisely define how that device reacts to the passage of energy through it. The protocols are the result of more and more finely refining the production processes and begin with the particular processes that are imposed on the concentration of materials as they are pulled from the ground (no to mention those necessary for finding where to look in the ground for the right materials to begin with). Production processes have protocols for dimensional tolerance, purity, electrical conductivity, and other parameters, as well as meta-protocols on protocols. (see organizations like ISO which coordinate some of the hundreds of thousands of standards which humans have applied within their Techno-Social systems.)
It would appear that large numbers of people living in the so-called developed world are increasingly willing to submit to deeper and deeper layers of (globally-applied) protocols in order to maintain connection with other members of their tribe. Each deployment of protocol is a directed flow which taps off life-energy for the system imposing the (dominant) protocol.
Back to the original idea of participation. It is precisely the arrangement of protocols, guiding the flows of energy through the complex systems which will allow or disallow for individual participation. If the complexity of the protocols are too much — where the individual cannot refine his or her particular embodied energy expressions to fit the reductive pathway — the protocol will either continue to exist as a limited (possibly elite) pathway of expression and impression, or it will pass away. The history of technology is littered with dead protocols: ones which, for a time, shunted vast quantities of human energy in the service of the system, others which were created and used once and discarded as not efficient enough to tap the energy required to maintain their own hegemonic existence.
(Early adopters represent no revolutionary vanguard, but rather a type of individual motivated to adopt newly-imposed protocols. This with the thought that the adoption of these imposed protocols will somehow give evolutionary advantage. But in this Light, adoption may be seen as an expression of conformity to (and explicit support for!) the ever-more dominant Techno-Social system.)
more on participation later…