#hist605

preface

Perhaps this is related to affect theory's crisis ordinariness

distracted present, where forces on the periphery are magnified and those immediately before us are ignored.

Tie in with Judith Butler's precariousness.

Otaku... Database animals

Baudrillard

Baudrillard predicts that in postmodern society the distinction between original products and commodities and their copies weakens, while an interim form called the simulacrum, which is neither original nor copy, becomes dominant.1

Social reality and fiction

The otaku choose fiction over social reality not because they cannot distinguish between them but rather as a result of having considered which is the more effective for their human relations, the value standards of social reality or those of fiction....Otaku shut themselves into the hobby community not because they deny sociality but rather because, as social values and standards are already dysfunctional, they feel a pressing need to construct alternative values and standards.

Failure of grand narrative

can view the otaku's neurotic construction of “shells of themselves” out of materials from junk subcultures as a behavior pattern that arose to fill the void from the loss of grand narrative.

The 2 questions

The two questions are:

In postmodernity, as the distinction between an original and a copy are extinguished, simulacra increase. If this is valid, then how do they increase? In modernity, the cause for the birth of an original was the concept of “the author.” In postmodernity, what is the reason for the birth of the simulacra?

In postmodernity grand narratives are dysfunctional; “god” and “society,” too, must be fabricated from junk subculture. If this is correct, how will human beings live in the world? In moder-nity, god and society secured humanity; the realization of this was borne by religious and educational institutions, but after the loss of the dominance of these institutions, what becomes of the humanity of human beings?

Narrative consumption

sys-tem (or the grand narrative) itself cannot be sold, so, in appearance, installments of serialized dramas and “goods” get consumed as single fragments that are cross sections of the system. I want to label this kind of situation “narrative consumption”

From the Tree - model World to the Database - model World

In the world of the modern tree model, the surface outer layer is determined by the deep inner layer, but in the world of the postmodern database model, the surface outer layer is not deter-mined by the deep inner layer; the surface reveals different expres-sions at those numerous moments of “reading up.”

I disagree-- trees can be derived from the reading up of the database

tree -model world image that is character-istic of modernity stands in opposition to the database model of the postmodern world image;

But I agree with this

in opposition to the database model of the postmodern world image; in the deep inner layer of the former there is a grand narrative, but in the deep inner layer of the latter there is not

More

The younger generations that grew up within the postmodern world image imagine the world as a database from the beginning, since they do not need a perspective on the entire world that surveys all—that is to say, they have no need for forgeries, even as a subculture. And if this is the case, in the shift from the generation that needed fiction as a substitute for lost grand narratives to the gen-eration that consumes fictions without such a need—even though they are two parts of the same otaku culture—then a grand transfor-mation is realized in their forms of expression and consumption.

In such a situation, it does not make sense to ask what the original of Di Gi Charat is, who the author is, or what kind of message is implied. The entire project was driven by the power of fragments; projects such as the anime or the novel, formerly dis-cussed independently as a “work,” are merely related products, just like character mugs and loose -leaf binders. The narrative is only a surplus item, added to the settings and illustrations (the nonnarrative)

Disagree. See above on trees derived from databases

However, previous theories on postmodernity failed to understand that the tree model did not simply collapse but was replaced by the database model.

Problem is only a problem when we only think of consumption. Databases are produced. They aren't meant to be and can't be consumed.

Georgia Tech, EMERGING CYBER THREATS REPORT 2015

AT THE NEXUS OF CYBERSECURITY AND PUBLIC POLICY: Some Basic Concepts and Issues, David Clark, Thomas Berson, and Herbert S. Lin, Editors. Committee on Developing a Cybersecurity Primer: Leveraging Two Decades of National Academies Work

SECURING CYBERSPACE - President Obama Announces New Cybersecurity Legislative Proposal and Other Cybersecurity Efforts