Alex Juhasz responds in Podcast form to "silicon valley’s entrepreneurial capitalism leaves rubble in its wake"
Hi, I’m Alexandra Juhasz and this is Episode 5 of We Need Gentle Truths for Now. The podcast engages in radical digital media literacy by enjoying a bite of education and a bit of poetry, creating humane responses to fake news and social media in the era of Covid-19.
For this episode, we will consider the relations between digital tools, their corporate overlords, and the power we retain in our own bodies. Even as we stay isolated, we will listen to a beautiful uncoiling of ideas from Natalie Bookchin, a media artist based in New York, to Molly Astley, a British poetry student. Together they will consider HardTruth Number 59: “silicon valley’s entrepreneurial capitalism leaves rubble in its wake.” It was written by Natalie in 2017 for my online primmer on digital media literacy. She reads it for us now, while sheltered upstate. The place of her body today presses against the fantastical claims of silicon valley’s plans for escape.
Natalie:
Silicon Valley has their cake and wants to eat it too. The tools they create, promote, and that enrich them have been instrumental in creating the mess we are now in. These faux-populists claim that they and their tools are anti-institutional and countercultural, giving the people a voice and a choice and challenging the hegemony of mainstream institutions. But entrepreneurial capitalism is their only true religion and the only agent of change. As they congratulate themselves on changing the world, and on their hard work and entrepreneurial rigor, and as they dream of space travel, moon walks, eternal life, and superintelligence, they are blind and deaf to the rubble left in their wake: from rampant sexism in their companies, the autocratic rule of the white elite, increasing inequality, loss of jobs, to a bolstered and strengthened surveillance state and market. Deep in their hearts they know it is not likely to end well, and they have prepared their escape – from bunkers in New Zealand, to the sea and intergalactic travel.”
Molly Astley is an undergraduate at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, studying creative and critical writing. She attended a Fake News Poetry Workshop at the university in 2018. Molly responded to and extended Natalie’s ideas about Silicon Valley inspired instability and resultant rubble with a poem of her own.
do not be distracted from the truth
that you make with your own body.
solidity is a useful illusion,
it gets us through the day.
but solidity dupes us.
tectonic assurance is fragile ground.
the truth is in the way we move
the truth is in the impressionability of us,
the truth is a space we fight to shape.
We all use the internet’s shiny surfaces, but they’re owned by an elite cadre of corporatists. As Natalie explains, these foundations are rooted in entrepreneurial capitalism, a system geared not for stability but for upheaval.
When I was preparing for a book of poems written at Fake News Poetry Workshops, I reached out to Molly again, sharing with her other work that had been generated by her thinking, particularly her line “tectonic assurance in fragile ground.” She recorded the response, which follows, about her own critical and artistic foundations, rooted in the stability of her own body, which lie just below the surface of her thought. I think it’s critical to note that she recorded these thoughts before the era of Covid-19 and social distancing.
Danger of society is that we become disembodied.
Our bodies can deliver us our own concepts of truths
And relative freedom we have with our bodies; to put them in places.
And also the restrictions of them to be in one place.
As opposed to digital networks.
Reissuing.
Setting of silicon valley (2:00)
Omnipotent but geologically fragile
Reflective of wider dynamic
Not sustainable for earth.
Faith in systems that are not reliable or fair.
Exerting control
Thank you for listening to Episode 5 of We Need Gentle Truths for Now: Radical Digital Media Literacy as Podcast. The chilling relations between capitalism, freedom, networks, and sustainability can be understood through our bodies, as well as the poems and truths through which we render our knowledge. The primary goal of Fake News Poetry Workshops is to bring people together to generate conversation, community, and art about connections between social media, verification tools, and lived truth. When we are socially distanced, we are more and less dependent on our bodies and earth. We move content and processes online where we invite you to also live and know the internet differently, by engaging. You can volunteer to read a poem or a hardtruth. You can contribute your understanding of one of the hardtruths or poems. You can also stage a digital workshop. Please email us at 100hardtruths@gmail.com. To learn more about the project, see the embedded links or listen to our podcast 0.
This podcast was produced, written, and read by Alexandra Juhasz. It was directed and edited by Matthew Hittle, copyedited by Gavin McCormick, with music by Noah Chevan. Social media help by Cole Richards and Kaycee Genualdo. Readings by Natalie Bookichin in upstate New York and Molly Astley in Brighton England. Thank you for listening.