{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title":"DIGITAL LABOR THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780415896948","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","id":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","uuid":"a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title":"DIGITAL LABOR THE INTERNET AS PLAYGROUND AND FACTORY","normalized_title":"digitallabortheinternetasplaygroundandfactory","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780415896948","isbns":["9780415896948","9780415896955","9780203145791"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":267,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/DIGITAL%20LABOR%20THE%20INTERNET%20AS%20PLAYGROUND%20AND%20FACTORY","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/a31b1606-7526-4f42-a12d-1edcb41ff0e7/search"},"page":{"printed_page":137,"pdf_page":144,"physical_index":144,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"c1d29c35b9cebb7632d180a5fdb2869aa35595479acaf12aa1e1efb95dd92ac9"},"chapter":"DIGITAL LABOR","content":"Put in psychoanalytic terms, symbolic identity is increasingly meaningless in the society of control. What we have instead are imaginary identities sustained by excess jouissance—that is, by an injunction to enjoy. More specifically, symbolic identity involves the subject's identification with an ego ideal—that is, with a perspective before whom the subject sees himself and his actions. Imaginary identification refers to the image that the subject adopts of himself. Symbolic identification, we might say, establishes the setting that determines which images appear and how it is that some are more compelling or attractive to us than others Imaginary identification refers only to my self-image.\n\nIn disciplinary society, normative expectations coalesced around determinate social roles. Presuming the gaze of the school, church, family, or state, one could imagine oneself in different positions, positions that would either comply with or transgress institutional norms. I can be à conscientious student, faithful believer, dutiful daughter, good citizen. I can also be a delinquent, backsliding, worthless traitor. Even as the images differ, the symbolic identity ofthe gaze remains the same. In the wake of the decline of symbolic efficiency, the dissolution of disciplinary society, this gaze loses its prior force. We aren't sure ifit's operative, if others believe it: is the good student a cog, uncreative, thinking inside the box, a goody-twoshoes? Does the Other actually admire and applaud transgression, and, if so, is it then more transgressive not to be transgressive since that's what the Other wants? Encountering the endless possibilities of contemporary reflexivity, postdisciplinary subjects are propelled to move through a variety of imaginary identities. We imagine ourselves one way, then another, never sure of how we appear because we don't know before whom we appear.\n\nLacking the ability to imagine how we appear to another, how another sees us, we lose the capacity to take the position of another, to see or think from another's perspective. We can choose any identity, but we lack the grounds for choosing or the sense that an identity, once chosen, entails bonds of obligation.19 Rather than following norms—which ones? How do they know? Who made them the expert?—we cycle through trends, whether these come from fashion, diet advice, or the hope for an anchor in a particular subculture. The society of control places limits on the mobility and fluidity of contemporary hybrid identities, but these limits are not those installed by a master signifier or symbolic law. Subjects experience these limits as either groundless intrusions, irrational barriers to enjoyment, or as hypothetical or instrumental injunctions as means for achieving enjoyment later. Caught in reflexive networks—always another move, another level—we lose the capacity for reflection. Our networks are reflexive so that we don't have to be.\n\nWe are not bloggers. We are not Facebook. The networked interactions of communicative capitalism do not provide symbolic identities, sites from which we see ourselves as loci of collective action. Rather, they provide opportunities for new ways for me to imagine myself, a variety of lifestyles that I can try and try on. This variety and mutability makes my imaginary identity extremely vulnerable— the frames of reference that give it meaning and value are forever shifting; the others who can rupture it might appear at any moment, and their successes, thei achievements, their capacities to enjoy call mine into question: I could have ha more; I could have really enjoyed. This insecurity is not only psychic; it's a reason able response to struggles to persist in global, reflexive financial and informatior networks. Most ofthe economic benefits of neoliberal capitalism—of the nev economy celebrated by digital media gurus—follow a power-law distribution A lucky few will get nearly everything. Most willgetvery little, almost nothing.\n\nWhatever Blogging\n\n137","previous_page":null,"next_page":138}