On Agoras (v.3)

Concepts of ‘public sphere’
as a matter of responsibility

Taking the issue of responsibility in the publishing sphere leads to the notion of the public. From here on, what means public and how the subject (either the authorial or creational/constitutional one as sides of the public discourse) approaches it and how the public appears today through the category of responsibility?
For the purposes of this issue of the magazine it was proposed to discuss the 'processual' publishing as a matter of 'actual gestures', distinguishing the gesture from the action. At first glance, it may seem that the structural positioning of the topic as such formulates the condition of the responsibility of/in the public sphere. But what if this position damps the peak of the action as, first of all, a matter of responsibility? If one agrees that the gesture is more like 'signifying motions and signalling something' instead of 'changing' it, than, does it mean a withdrawal of the significance of the responsibility now a days? Il pensiero debole? The very same one may argue this with the recent condition of the de-centred structure or even subject and by that - the dis-powered ones. Does it mean that the de-centring has to be, in the same time, dis-powered or freed of full responsibility?

Let this list of questions be junctioned with the following statement: 'public sphere' is not only 'being democratised' to say and to criticise whatever was placed and whomever placed the statement into the field of public (by different means), but rather to accept the higher degree of responsibility carried by the both sides of the public dialogue: the placed statement and the critique of it.
According to this, let it be taken three forms of public space for three different conditions of public responsibility: the agora, the book and the blog. The first one alludes on the oral tradition in the ancient Greece, the second reflects the Gutenbergian era and the latest relates to the McLuhanian one. And they may seam as historical survey of the developing or the presence of the attitude between the public statement and its responsibility, i.e. as items in a diachronical structure, but for this occasion they are taken as three synchronic concepts. They are understood as three different concepts of the appearing of the statement in the public sphere and the level of the public responsibility (or responsibility in the public).

1. THE AGORA CONCEPT
In ancient Greece agora meant a public open space used for assemblies and markets. Stoa (at the Athens' agora) was the large portico in which the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea gave the founding lectures of the Stoic school of philosophy in the 5th century BC. [Fig. 1] The metaphor of the stoa for this concept is based upon the situation in which the verbal communication between the author of the statement confronts to the audience in direct and by that becoming public. While presenting (making present by its presence), promoting and defending the statement there were not more than few tens of listeners and, if provocative enough, repliers and critics. The confrontation was realised trough direct confrontation that means that the author was bodily (i.e. physically) present in front of the public. So, the author's responsibility was personal responsibility. The responsibility for the statement was temporary - lasting for only limited period of time (while discussing), but not permanent. Due to the fact that the promotion of the statement was verbal, the public sphere appears as a direct critic or critique.






2. THE BOOK CONCEPT
This concept appeared after the invention of the press and printing machine by Johannes Gutenberg in 1450. What appeared was the possibility of disseminating of the statement to the hundreds and thousands of readers, instead of limited editions of the medieval manuscripts. [Fig. 2] By that the public sphere switched to the readership, replacing the verbal confrontation via oral discussion. Not the oral, but publicised statement of the author through the printing appeared as material presence for a critique of the statement. This disables direct confrontation and enables pre-confrontation (known only for the author and the editor as a priori) and post-confrontation (vivid as a posteriori reaction of the public). The former through the editor's approval or peer review recommendation, the later via reviews and polemics printed some time after the making of the statement public. Having the publisher, editor/ial or peer review as a approval of the value of the statement certain degree of the author's responsibility is exchanged with the former's meta-responsibility. The author's responsibility is not in front of the public (in the agora's sense), but rather behind the name on the cover of the book or the review. As such, this concept deals with the temporally responsible for the statement, of or relating to time, as opposed to the temporary.





3. THE BLOG CONCEPT
It was in 1965 when McLuhan, almost prophetically, introduced into the language the terms such as 'media', 'global village' and 'age of information', among the others. 'In general, he writes, electric speed-up requires complete knowledge of ultimate effects.' This ultimate (as 'being of the end of the process') denotes the mass media as an indication 'of the fact that everybody becomes involved in them at the same time. Thus commodity industries under automation [or cybernation] share the same structural character of the entertainment industries in the degree that both approximate the condition of instant information.' From here on, the public sphere, as it is pixeled, becomes an entertained subject. [Fig. 3] The tens of thousands of surfers are mediated via the monitor (as exponent of the virtuality). The monitor itself is creating the virtual presence of the author and as such s/he is 'hidden' behind it. And vice versa, the critique of the statement inter-plays mediated confrontation, appeared through different adds, pod-casts, posts, comments, impressions, etc. Such a condition of hidden presence (based on the media ability to be hidden behind different 'names' or the possibility to create even avatars) seriously questions the origin and the originality of the notion of responsibility. By this, the blogger generates a quasi-responsibility which designates the blog concept as ephemerally responsible for the statement.





In other words, the issue of public responsibility transforms from one concept to another. The agora concept of full responsibility, due to the fact of the personal and physical presence (in vivo) in the public, is irreplaceable from its carrier (the author of the statement, comment, critique). As such, the verbal medium of promoting the statement recognises centred position based upon the knowledge in extenso. Only in this sense the capacity of the knowledge builds the power (or empowerment) as centred position.
In the book concept the personal responsibility is substituted (but not yet disappeared) from its carrier by the transferring, and by that sharing with, to the editor or the peer review process. The responsibility in the printed medium is re-centred due to the fact that the valuability of the statement is denoted not only by knowledge, but first of all by the argumentation and its referentiality. By that it is re-centred because the responsibility is partially transferred to others' capacities of knowledge: the power is disseminated and spread through the community of professionals.
The blog concept shares apparent, simulated responsibility, even pseudo-responsibility. It derives from the nature and the structure of the medium in which the statement is transmitted. The pixeled medium is changeable by anyone which means that it is still not a referential one. Therefore it may appear that this is a reason why there is no need for knowledge and argumentation (referentiality). It appears as de-centred not because that it can be dispersed among the tens of thousands of surfers, but because it is displaced from the position of the centre as position of power – i.e. it is dis-powered. The notion of the most democratic medium, as it is proclaimed, comes out from the widening of the field of knowledge: instead of the professionals, towards whom the statement is addressed, it is available to the large (laic) public.


If it so, how the uncritical understanding of the democratisation of the public sphere results? Keeping in mind the first and only concept of dis-powerment of the centre, the responsibility losts its own reason and cause. As much the public sphere is democratised (and especially - de-centred), that less responsibility is present. It appears that claiming for gestures rather than for action leads to the condition of having a statement, or placing it in the field of public as being fully democratic, without responsibility. In other words, it more to be fully democratic instead of being fully responsible for the action. The more interest is forced in the processual without being conclusional has - no meaning. The dis-powering of the centre does not mean that one has no or less responsibility in the public. The rhizomatic structure of the today's spirit of time had no thought of loosing the personal responsibility on behalf of the group or mass. It just spreads the responsibility to any single subject of that very same group or mass. The dis-powered centre as single means empowerment of the plurality of singles. And that requests form of personal responsibility which is not hidden behind the 'democratised' pixeled medium through which instead of action, there will be promotion of gesture that 'implies an indication, a sign' only, gesture that 'entails a particular type of agency, as well as a idiosyncrasy that is specific to what it suggest'.
Hence, 'publishing the public' still needs to be published statement (even of the subject from the general public) as a system of responsibility which still recognises and consists the form of improved by the system.

Public does mean democratic (or at least - democratised) plurality, but it easily slips into impersonal responsibility or personal irresponsibility. Even more - into impersonal irresponsibility. After the personal responsibility (stoa concept), shared responsibility (book concept) and hidden responsibility (pixel concept) who needs that?, what is the sense of it?, where does it lead to? Or there is need for a new concept of the public on the horizon: the one of the avatar - the one of impersonal irresponsibility? A movable, replaceable, re-changeable, re-chargeable icon/platform representing the person/public in cyberspace which will transfer the responsibility to some centre - again ... to the Clarke's 'Hal 9000', for example: 'With the amazing computer Clarke presents one of the basic philosophical questions: can there be intelligence without consciousness?' (Fig. 4)



If by that the circle is closed (centre - re-centre - de-centre - centre), then: isn’t our ‘transited’ and less personally responsible post-modernity turned back to some ‘quasi’ antiquity?*



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* The first version [v.1] of this text was verbally presented at Documenta 12 Launch Lectures on July 17, 2007. The second version [v.2] appeared digitally on www.labourforculture.org and www.nvilic.blogspot.com. This version [v.3] is published in The Mag.net reader 3.