Month: November 2013

• somewhere you can never take me (part 2)

  Several weeks ago I posted some of my favorite pop critiques of social technologies (here). Today I discovered a video from Shimi Cohen that wins the prize: My writing on social media—especially in relation to social movements—can be found here and here.

  Jonathan Matthew Smucker

  November 28, 2013

  Uncategorized

  Internet, loneliness, social media, technology

• Norbert Elias on Shame

  From Norbert Elias’ The Civilizing Process. Useful re: group functioning and individual psychological processes of shame. Apologies for the gender exclusive pronouns. The feeling of shame is a specific excitation, a kind of anxiety which is automatically reproduced in the individual on certain occasions by force of habit. Considered superficially, it is fear of social…

  Jonathan Matthew Smucker

  November 26, 2013

  Uncategorized

  Norbert Elias, shame

• Not enough lifeboats

  You cannot take even one breath without manipulating the common fabric of material existence. Everything manipulates everything else. Every action shifts the ground upon which everything else is built. There is no such thing as a fully autonomous project. The question is not whether but how to manipulate. How will you step into responsibility to…

  Jonathan Matthew Smucker

  November 18, 2013

  Uncategorized

  agency, anarchism, autonomy, manipulation, power