The confrontation between self and other, Melanie Puff says, is paradoxical. She says that communication systems that enforce conformity (and avoid hybridity) are motivated by the will to power. [Isn’t it more complex than that?]

But that’s not the only possibility, she says. “The number of subversive systems is increasing.” These are both inside and outside the system; they are hybrids and paradoxical. “The logical truth of our reality comes to an end.” Identity becomes hybridity. Self can be self and other at the same time. No continuity: sampling instead. An “osciallating continuum with two extreme points at the end.” “The modern western self tends to avoid the other and avoid the loneliness of the self” by creating the concept of authenticity. Instead, we get a denial of logos, a more intuitive self. There’s a danger of a new power game; it is important that hybridity never switch to the extreme points where it would be either self or other. It needs to switch, mix, restore and recreate. We are forced to trust in ourselves and the other. Hybridity is a state of mind and an active practice. [Man, this way of talking goes right past me. It makes it harder to tell what’s true in it. At least for me. I guess the real question is why this mode so provokes me. I admit to having a psychological problem it brings out. (Also, it makes it hard for me to blog it adequately, for which I apologize to Melanie.)] [Technorati tags: ArsElectronica2005]

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