A meme moment here on Play Journal - or more accurately, giving some more impetus to Bruce Sterling's cheeky new periodisation of the times. Say a big ludological "Hi!!" to The Supermodern (raise your font size):
MODERN POSTMODERN SUPERMODERN
18th c - 1960s 1960s-1990s 1990s-present day
International Multinational Globalized
Nation-States Multinationals Market States
Philosophy Theory Actionable Intelligence
Discovery of Truth Uncovering Repressed Truth Datamining the Chatter
Essence Simulacra Plausibility
Have to say, it works for me. Is there a shift between play (postmodern) and play-ethics (supermodern)? That is, players "take reality lightly" (Super), rather than all is illusion and spectacle (Post)? Supermoderns think there is such a thing as ontological reality - but the truth we discover is that matter itself is flux, form and movement (hello Deleuze, DeLanda, and complexity theory). Thus 'plausibility' is important - we make the best case for acting in shifting circumstances. And 'actionable intelligence' - almost a core definition of how play works in terms of learning and understanding - is required to inform our actions. Certainly, 'datamining the chatter' - ie, a public datasphere composed of many active,overlapping voices - is enabled by the play-tools of the web.
"Market-state" is the only one I'd question as the inevitable supermodern polity. I'll still go with Castells' network state - it has to be open to other modalities of production and creation that are distinct from market or state.(See Yochai Benkler's stunning new work on the economics of peer-to-peer sharing, here and here.)
Thoughts?
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