Positive/ Negative Liberty & New Technologies in Our Society
During our last class, there were some questions on the definitions of positive and negative liberty as defined by the trap. I reviewed the final episode from The Trap and according to my understanding of it, positive freedom follows the idea that there is only one true freedom that was understood by leaders of a revolution, and in order to get the following of the masses, coercion was involved. Negative freedom is the freedom of all individuals to do what they want, and nothing more. Negative freedom is a society without ideals other than individuals desires and the freedom to indulge them. According to The Trap, Isaiah Berlin believed that negative liberty would lead to stability and order while all attempts at revolution will always lead to disaster.
Trying to connect these ideas to New Media, I found an interesting example involving viewer’s freedoms when it comes to television and choosing what information they would like to receive. In the book “The Constitutional Parameters Private Right to Censor,” Patrick M. Garry seems to think that there’s a “continuing onslaught of new media technologies that will keep shoving unwanted speech toward unwilling listeners [and therefore] a private right to censor may be needed” (65). A VOD, or video on demand technology, promises to be more effective than the V-CHIP in giving television viewers more control in what they watch by letting them choose what shows they receive on their sets so that it is more of an interactive experience than a passive experience. Hence this freedom could be considered a negative liberty, since it involves individuals protecting themselves, independent of the government, to fulfil their own desires.
It seems that new media is allowing for the development of technologies in which their is more of a pull to receive information that one wants as opposed to a push of information that is offensive. Because new technologies are providing more autonomy for users, perhaps we are moving into an era of increased negative liberty so that individuals are a step closer, at least when utilizing their various new media, to be free to indulge in fulfilling whatever they want and nothing else?
“The Trap” and “Zeitgeist The Movie”
I think it’s worthwhile to turn away from the new media implications of the film and look at it objectively as a documentary. On its own, the structure of the film is very simple and allows for two primary forms of address: that of an authoritative narrator and interviews with experts and individuals the film deems important. The authority of the film’s narrative voice remains largely unquestioned throughout the series. Its message is clearly posited at the beginning of the film and is explained through a series of simple narrative arcs that allow for the placing of blame onto a few key figures. These figures are visibly belittled throughout the film, denied the opportunity to speak for themselves or propped up as confessors to their own crimes. The film chooses to capture these figures (John Nash, Tony Blair, etc) in positions of repose or awkward silence with the effect of making them seem absurd, inept, and untrustworthy. This type of exemplary historical narrative suggests a causality wherein cold war politics and game theory may be repeatedly applied to the transformation of political ideology in the United States, Britain, and abroad.
Ultimately the film seems to suggest that the trap its title refers to is the double bind of positive and negative liberty and the permeable dichotomy they share. But while the film spends three hours rooting this entrapment within historical instances grounded in the actions of key individuals, it concludes that we must not give up on the kind of revolutionary idealism that Isaiah Berlin and others had criticized, that somehow we will escape the kind of corruption and abuses of power that transform negative liberty into positive liberty’s systems of control. No examples are given to support this theory, and indeed the previous three hours of the film would seem to be an argument against the film’s conclusion. While this film originally aired on BBC-2 its rhetorical strategies seem to share many similarities with Internet-based conspiracy documentaries such as Zeitgeist The Movie, which has been lauded both as a forum for alternative expression and as exemplary of the kind of disinformation many believe is the result of the lack of regulation online:
It seems to me that while the trap ends somewhat abruptly without offering any sort of real solution to the problems it spends so long articulating, it does hint at a more realistic enemy that is the cause of the kind of cyclical history of positive and negative liberty. In all the historical examples given it seems that the corruption of corporate power and the abuse of capital lead to the downfall of democratic idealism. The assumption that large multi-national corporations should be placed at the reigns of a free market economy seems entirely contradictory to its goals. Of course any attempt to reform American capitalism without the use of revolutionary violence would be a long and difficult one akin to Raymond Williams’ long revolution. I’m sure I’ll have more to say on that once I read the suggested reading for next week’s class.
Positive and Negative Liberty-post 2
Another aspect surrounding the concepts of positive and negative liberty that I found very interesting is their connection to the ideas of public good and public choice. In “The Trap”, Adam Curtis drives home the point that the idea of working for a public good is a complete fantasy, because people are in actuality only out for their own personal advancement. Therefore, when a government official makes claims of representing public choice, he or she is in fact only representing personal choices that will serve in his or her best interest. Under the notion of game theory, people are seen as selfish and suspicious, and it is therefore highly unlikely that any one person would put aside a condition that would better server their own situation for the sake of the public good. In a very similar way, the idea of negative liberty is often revered as the goal to strive for in terms of freedom, but as this film points out, negative liberty does not actually stand for anything other than the belief in the freedom of all individuals to act on their own accord. And while it does not dismiss the existence of government and laws, under negative liberty, such institutions should exist only in so far as they uphold an individuals ability to successfully live as a true individual. While I think the idea behind public good and negative liberty are great, I don’t see how the two could ever work together, or if either is even possible on its own. Both terms seem to represent impossible ideals that would clash even if they were achieved. Assuming the disposition of humans beings under game theory is incorrect, and people are in fact caring and sometimes selfless, trustworthy creatures capable of reaching a consensus as to what the public good is, that act alone automatically hinders ones ability to act as a true individual, in addition to offsetting the idea of negative liberty. As I understand it, the idea of a public good encompasses a lot more that the most base laws to ensure that one can act of his or her own accord. It involves the construction of many more laws and regulations that may in fact represent the sentiments of the general public, but nevertheless eliminates their possibility of negative liberty.
What’s New Media? Post 3
Upon answering the question “what is new media,†I’d like to apply the famous principle of “positivity†and “negativity†of liberty. In terms of negativity of liberty, new media would be a channel, a trendy industry of communication in which people appropriate the information and resources from new media to spread their own perspectives of freedom including the freedom of speech and the freedom of markets and other subjects. New media, or the government who use the media as a vehicle to propaganda themselves, offer its people what they want and what they want the society to be in an effective and efficient way through the usage of high-tech.
From the standpoint of positivity of liberty, new media are leaders of a social, political, and economic revolution and movement that scheme an unprecedented idea of democracy for its people on the purpose of making a better and just society by employing non-traditional formats of mediated technology.
Network Neutrality
Adam Curtis’ “The Trap” and its explorations of the concepts of freedom and positive and negative liberty made me think of network neutrality, an issue that may have great bearing on “new media.” For those of you unfamiliar with network neutrality, it is the concept of the lack of restrictions on communications networks (broadband internet in particular). In this way, it is the concept of negative liberty applied to the internet. Examples of restrictions that advocates of network neutrality fear include charging users for access to certain sites, charging websites for bandwidth (i.e. the time a site takes to load may depend on how much they are paying), or even complete blocking of certain sites.
As Isaiah Berlin predicted, the desire for this negative liberty has resulted in a desire for positive liberty - a call for regulation. Many advocates of network neutrality believe that government regulation is necessary to prevent the private companies who run these communications networks from placing restrictions. However, others argue, the internet is what it is today because of a lack of regulation and control, and enforcing (perhaps forcing) a certain model would be wrong and detrimental. As professor Tim Wu points out in his page about network neutrality, “The hard question, of course, is what exactly is ‘neutral?’” Blogger Cory Doctorow expands on this by pointing out that “Asking [the FCC] to write a set of rules describing “neutrality” and then enforce them seems like a recipe for trouble to me.”
Furthermore, this brings up the issue of whether or not the free market should be allowed to sort such issues out on its own. As suggested in the documentary, perhaps decisions made in the context of a free market are more democratic than those made by elected government. Advocates of government regulation may also be presenting a false argument between liassez-faire and the will of the people.
Here are some interesting articles/pages for exploring the issue further:
- Hands Off the Internet (an anti-regulation website/blog)
- Save the Internet (a pro-regulation website)
- The Benefits and Risks of Mandating Network Neutrality, and the Quest for a Balanced Policy (a looong journal article)
Positive and Negative Liberty
Discrepancy as to what it means to be free appears in one form or another throughout all three parts of this documentary. According to the film, positive liberty is driven by the false belief that there is one absolute definition as to what freedom is and the conditions necessary for a person to truly be free. Negative liberty, on the other hand, doesn’t define freedom as anything above and beyond the idea that individuals must be able to think and act on their own individual accord. It does not dismiss government and laws, but negative liberty states that such social constructions should exist only in so far as they act to uphold individuals ability to successfully carry out their own choices and actions. However, as Isaiah Berlin recognized and warned, the belief in negative liberty is always transformed into a form of positive liberty. Because negative liberty does not actually stand for anything concrete or definable, the moment a person decides what he or she believes to be freedom, it automatically becomes a form of positive liberty. And any belief in a final answer always leads to the coersion of others. Therefore, one can’t believe in negative liberty as an ideal because it would automatically corrupt the whole idea of it.
What I found very interesting about this concept is how easy it is to pervert, or misconstrue what this term represents (because as mentioned, it doesn’t represent something; it represents a lack of something: a lack of restriction to freedom). If I myself haven’t misunderstood the concept of negative liberty, it seems that influencial thinkers such as Jean Paul Sartre, Frantz Fenon, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, and George Bush (to just name a few) have all turned it into positive liberty in one form or another. For example, in the name of attaining true freedom through violance, as Fenon did, one is distinguishing what he or she believes to be the type of freedom worth fighting for, and is by default placing restrictions on the opposing side’s conception of freedom.
