{"id":17563,"date":"2013-11-08T05:00:13","date_gmt":"2013-11-08T09:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=17563"},"modified":"2020-03-31T03:33:56","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T07:33:56","slug":"a-culture-of-moderation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2013\/11\/08\/a-culture-of-moderation\/","title":{"rendered":"A Culture of Moderation: or, no more messages from Satan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/span> Image from the 365 Days Project, where they discuss a 1981 Christian radio show about hidden Satanic messages in rock songs. You can listen here: http:\/\/ubu.com\/outsiders\/365\/2003\/012.shtml<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This post is gonna wind its way through the last 30 years of pop culture on its way to saying something about Jenny\u2019s recent post on \u201cThe \u2018ought\u2019 of Technology<\/a>.\u201d I want to broaden the lens from technology in particular to pop culture in general, because I think the \u201cought\u201d Jenny identifies isn\u2019t limited to tech use. The imperative to be moderate is a more generalized cultural norm<\/em>. This concept of moderation may help us think about how norms and conventions about tech use are integrated in and impact other, less explicitly techy phenomena. It may also explain why nobody cares anymore about kids hearing hidden messages–e.g., from Satan–on records, but worries more about their BMI and their diet.<\/span><\/p>\n

I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I actually remember buying CDs with \u201cParental Advisory\u201d stickers on them. I remember Tipper Gore\u2019s Parents\u2019 Music Research Center (PMRC<\/a>). I remember the media being saturated with stories about \u201chidden messages\u201d in music. The sampled dialogue at the beginning of 1000 Homo DJs 1990 cover of Black Sabbath\u2019s \u201cSupernaut\u201d takes one expression of this anxiety and repeats it in an ironic, mocking way.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Practically every one of the top 40 records being played on every radio station in the United States is a communication to the children to take a trip, to drop out, to groove; the psychedelic jackets on the record albums have their own hidden symbols and messages as well as all the lyrics of all the top rock songs, and they all sing the same refrain: it\u2019s fun to take a trip, put acid in your veins<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"YouTube<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the sample Al Jourgensen used on this track is primarily concerned with hidden drug and racial messages (tripping, grooving), by the 80s the concern was less with drugs and more with hidden Satanic messages. This \u201chidden messages from Satan\u201d trope has a long history–there\u2019s an urban legend that certain Beatles records, when played backwards, contain demonic messages. KMFDM\u2019s \u201cSucks\u201d parodies this trope. KMFDM explicitly states their song has \u201ca message from Satan if you turn it around\u201d…but it\u2019s an answering machine<\/em> message to<\/em> Satan, from bandmember En Esch:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Hey, Satan, its En Esch talking now; let me know what\u2019s going on, man. Call…call me anytime, man…I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s your call.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"YouTube<\/a><\/span><\/span>___<\/span><\/p>\n

You might think of this concern with hidden Satanism as the inverse or negative of the similarly widespread concern over explicit sex and violence in the then increasingly popular genre of hip hop (e.g. 2 Live Crew). The PMRC was a response to widespread white middle-class anxieties about hidden and explicit<\/em> influences on kids and teens. This anxiety was seen as uncontroversial and politically neutral (i.e., neither a Democratic nor a Republican issue) enough for the Vice-President\u2019s wife to champion as her pet cause.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fast forward to today. Michelle Obama, the President\u2019s wife, isn\u2019t championing a project to protect our kids from hidden or explicit messages; instead, her pet project, \u201cLet’s Move<\/a>,\u201d is about fitness and diet. We\u2019re now concerned that our kids are too fat and unhealthy, not that they\u2019re Satanist junkies. Fitness and diet are now seen as relatively commonsense, uncontroversial, and politically neutral enough for the President\u2019s wife to champion as her<\/em> pet issue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Personal trainer London<\/span><\/a> should gain the maximum amount information from the initial consultation as possible, to enable themselves to deliver bespoke personal training programmes that cater exactly to human fitness requirements. Trainer should conduct a full health screen and wellness assessment, measuring parameters like muscle imbalances, cholesterol levels, blood sugar , posture, alignment, and vital sign .<\/span><\/p>\n

Personal and group fitness training gives people a source of accountability and therefore the opportunity to accurately measure their progress. Experiencing real fitness progress increases our feeling of motivation and this successively leads to our adherence to regular exercise. Most folk struggle to stick to their good intentions when going solo hence the importance of a private trainer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Personal training also will provide you with a fitness program designed only for you, as a trainer can evaluate your fitness level and tell you exactly what aspects need improved, and what you’ll do to enhance . Also, if you would like to try to to something specific, like train for a run event, a private trainer who focuses on that field are going to be ready to provide you with a workout tailored to your specific needs.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, we used to be concerned about the content<\/em> our kids consumed–what meanings they were interpreting<\/em> in the cultural products they consumed. Now we\u2019re concerned about the rate<\/em> of their consumption: quality and quantity of input (diet) as tracked to quality and quantity of output (fitness). We try to teach our children: \u201cEat enough (but not too much or too little), exercise enough (but not too much or too little). You can have a little junk, but not too much. Be neither anorexic nor bulimic–don\u2019t deny yourself, but don\u2019t binge either.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This imperative to \u201cbe healthy\u201d sounds a lot like the \u201cought\u201d Jenny identifies:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The ought rests between the two extremes described above. The ought, I argue, is a carefully curated relationship with technology, one in which the social actor has access, know how, and above all, control…Pathology here, of course, is a loss of control, a domination by the technology rather than domination of the technology.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So we\u2019re worried that kids aren\u2019t able to control themselves–or perhaps, rather, that (certain kinds of) parents aren\u2019t able to exercise proper\/sufficient control over their kids diets and routines. If we can\u2019t teach our kids to moderate their own bodies, we can\u2019t expect them to moderate their tech use.* Moderation is a broad-based and far-reaching social norm–it applies not just to tech use, but to everything, really.** In this light, anti-obesity projects like \u201cLet\u2019s Move\u201d look like programs to train children in the practices and norms required of good, trustworthy citizens.<\/span><\/p>\n

All this is to say that we\u2019ve moved from a culture of interpretation to a culture of moderation<\/strong>.*** Interpretive techniques used to be popular–psychoanalysis, for example, is an interpretive technique (finding the \u2018hidden\u2019 meanings of dreams and slips of the tongue); deconstruction is also an interpretive technique (finding the \u2018hidden\u2019 meaning in a text, what it \u2018does\u2019 as opposed to what it \u2018says\u2019). Now, tracking techniques are popular–we\u2019ve got the Quantified Self\/quantified self instead of psychoanalysis, and digital humanities approaches to literature\/data visualization instead of deconstruction. To assess our (im)moderation<\/em>, we have to track ourselves and each other<\/em> (to riff a bit on Jerry Springer).<\/span><\/p>\n

Some remaining questions: How might moderation–as an ideal, a value, a set of norms and practices–be embedded in the design of new and emerging technologies? How does new\/emerging tech help us moderate ourselves (and each other)? How might tech literacy make us more capably \u201cmoderate\u201d? What skills and practices of moderation transfer across media\/realms of experience (e.g., does the ability to maintain a thin, healthy body require skills that you can apply to moderate tech use?) When, say, employers look at social media profiles of employment candidates, are they really judging the candidates\u2019 ability to be moderate? Or, how do specific technologies and practices reveal our competency as moderate (or incompetency as immoderate) to others? And, finally, whatever happened to Satan? Where is Satan appearing, if at all, in pop culture nowadays?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* \u00a0We use body size as a sign of one\u2019s ability to practice moderation\/self-control.Thin people are thus seen as trustworthy; obese people are seen as untrustworthy.<\/span><\/p>\n

** Jenny uses the language of self-control, and I\u2019m using the language of moderation. I see the two as basically identical concepts because, in ancient Greek philosophy, moderation (sophrosyne) meant self-mastery. For those of you who know your Foucault, yes, there\u2019s a whole undercurrent of History of Sexuality v 2 running throughout my thinking here (which is also to say there\u2019s a lot of ancient Greek philosophy in play, too). I\u2019m actually working on a conference paper on this topic–I\u2019ll share it when it\u2019s ready.<\/span><\/p>\n

*** Ben Gabriel\u2019s \u201cI Have No Mouth But I Must Scream<\/a>\u201d suggests another way that we\u2019ve moved away from a culture of interpretation and meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Robin is on twitter as @doctaj, but the messages are only from her, not Satan.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is gonna wind its way through the last 30 years of pop culture on its way to saying something about Jenny\u2019s recent post on \u201cThe \u2018ought\u2019 of Technology.\u201d I want to broaden the lens from technology in particular to pop culture in general, because I think the \u201cought\u201d Jenny identifies isn\u2019t limited to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1929,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[39,26484,115,3249,16723,4045,18408],"class_list":["post-17563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-ethics","tag-moderation","tag-music","tag-philosophy","tag-quantified-self","tag-satan","tag-self-tracking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1929"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17563"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24218,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17563\/revisions\/24218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}