Notes on the Narrowness of "Openness": In Response to "The People's Platform" by Astra Taylor

As I was reading the first chapter in Astra Taylor's "The People's Platform," I kept noticing scalar shifts that are central to her points yet went under- or unstated. While an open platform is the desired arena in which the internet, the classroom, the art world, and society (for god's sake) should grow, I think to some degree there needs to be a consideration that openness in the senate does not look identical to openness online. I think of this in three ways: Facebook, C-Span, and Net Neutrality.

Siobhan Hapaska, Love, 2016

FACEBOOK 
Becomes a middleman to direct communication (there always has been one). Coopted the way we communicate and altered it - formalized it into black white and blue screens with text with photos submitted by users (which, once submitted, become property of Facebook for resale). Large fixture in greater evolutionary strain of the way we communicate - LOL, TTYL, OMFG, WTF etc

Also fits into a larger framework explained/explored by Taylor in which large companies centralize our communication, making the internet less and less a place of equality and freedom and more of a profit-driven exercise of capitalism in which our friend connections boosts their own bottom line (and our own self worth in many cases). Is there a connection in this case between user self-esteem and social media host profit? When the communication of the public directly correlates to the bottom line of the conversation's host, at what point does manipulation of this conversation start? When does it end? Does it? Is this open?

C-SPAN
Congress chambers are still locked to majority of americans, but we have a clear view of the proceedings of congress directly as they happen, unedited. There are other means by which the people may interject their voices into congress - legal and illegal - however. So while the system of government in itself offers only narrow thresholds through which the public can enter into "their" government, C-Span is a reliable source as it enables the public to, quite literally, watch over their government - from the comfort of their own home, at that.

In this way, the two-way conversation which defines "openness" is present in the most basic sense - public may speak to their elected officials and public hears from elected officials. This exists mostly as a symbol, however, which becomes apparent when we consider the things which would keep the public from speaking to their elected officials - discriminatory voting laws, lack of time, lack of resources, language barriers, etc.

NET NEUTRALITY
Net Neutrality is a noble, necessary, and futile measure, because American ingenuity has proven - within internet history and within history at large - that if there is a way for a corporation to manipulate a system from pluralism to corporatism, the corporations (which are people, remember that) will win. While the larger universe in which the system exists may remain free and open, the systems which make it useful to the general public will vanish that universe from public eye, offering their own system as the only option within the universe - if not as the universe itself, stealing its identity. This is, in effect, the battle between culture and capitalism. Even if Net neutrality wins in the books, we will learn that it did through Buzzfeed articles shared by our friends on Facebook.

Culture creates an opportunity. This opportunity is available to all because, first, the creator/s of this opportunity want to share it, and second, because it is simply easy to access by most other people. This opportunity, thus, gains traction, and its popularity surges. Suddenly, this opportunity becomes an Opportunity. When this Opportunity catches the eye of some Hungry Daddies who see the Opportunity's popularity, they will try to make a dollar out of it. And so, the ownership of this Opportunity shifts from Culture to the Hungry Daddies. Once this happens, the continued existence of the Opportunity is not to share the feeling that Culture had when it created the Opportunity, but to directly benefit the few Hungry Daddies who now own the Opportunity. And a smart Hungry Daddy will tell the general public that this is the only Opportunity out there - opportunity? No, it's Opportunity. They will deny and erase the existence of opportunity at large in the name of their own, singular, Opportunity. And while they may do their best to ensure the entire general public gets their hands on this Opportunity, unless it is self-sufficient, it will run dry, and the Hungry Daddies will return to Culture's, asking if they've created any opportunities lately.

WE'RE WRAPPING UP NOW
Here, truly, lies the scalar shift of which I speak. In that little story I whipped up in my crock pot, "openness" exists assuming (and we are assuming) that the Hungry Daddies want everyone to participate in this Opportunity because they're good capitalists and want to take everyone's money. And so, in a small sense, this system is open. In this sense, the capitalist system is open. The Hungry Daddies have, with their singular Opportunity, have created an open system.

But Culture offers everyone an opportunity, and Culture offers everyone an opportunity to make an opportunity. The Hungry Daddies could only offer one Opportunity: Culture can offer opportunity as far as the eye can see. And so this system is open too, but at a much larger scale.

In Taylor's reading, I saw discussion of "openness" move between the "openness" of Google to the "openness" of the Internet at large in a clunky and (I don't want to say it but I'm going to say it) sometimes careless way. Her arguments at large make sense, however they are diluted by the haphazard treatment of the mediums she analyzes and the relation to her central, valuable question of "openness" in these disparate yet linked arenas.