PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. THE RISE OF DRAMATIC CLASS On the psychic life of neoliberalism's homo economicus in the era of new media (Case study: Indonesia's Facebook and Twitter user)1 Priska Sabrina Luvita2 & Hizkia Yosie Polimpung3 Koperasi Riset Purusha Abstract. Having a dramatic life is one thing, but making it public is completely another thing that attracts further analysis. Everybody surely has drama – personal story, misery, happiness, sadness, romance and erotica. People also share these stories to others, ones with a qualified proximity. But telling these stories randomly, in public, without a definite knowledge as to the audience: this is historically a new phenomena. The present article endeavors at making an account of this new phenomena by using Indonesian Facebook and Twitter users. It begins firstly by observing the noisy dynamics inside the two platforms and figuring out a kind of subject defined by its dramatic activity. This activity is what will be called dramatization. Jacques Lacan’s theory of desire and sublimation will serve as lenses to further elaborate the concept of dramatization. It will argue that dramatization is a specific mode of desiring in our present new media era. Second section extrapolates from Michel Foucault’s genealogy of neoliberalism an hypothesis that dramatization being a further consequence of late neoliberal-capitalist democracy (NCD). Particular attention is given to the notion of ‘privatization’ which serves as the activity of neoliberal homo economicus. Third section tries to see dramatization as a kind of work, done by a kind of labor, producing a kind of value, paid by a kind of wage, and thereby forming a new kind of class: the dramatic class. Putting the discussion in the affective turn in social theory, the dramatic class is populated by people whose affective capacity being expropriated by the Capital through the complex constellation of new media technology. Dramatic class does not have autonomy of affect, it has only artificial freedom of affect inside the circuit built by the complex algorithm of new media. We, the authors, hope that the last section may provide a useful concluding discussion as to many implications of the thesis, and how to redirect our affective capacity through new media’s architecture to dramatically bring about conclusive drama to the neoliberal-capitalist system. Keyword: drama, dramatization, dramatic labor, new media, affect, democracy, neoliberal-capitalism We could not fail to remember that some years ago from now, it was socially awkward to forthrightly express our inner feeling publicly, or to disclose private matters in public spaces. One would feel ashamed if others know one’s individual affairs. But in today’s soPaper presented in International Symposium “The Ambivalence of New Media in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Propaganda, Resistance, Empowerment,” Center for Anthropological Studies and Labsosio Universitas Indonesia, and Goethe-University Frankfurt, Depok, 24 February 2015. 2 Researcher in Koperasi Riset Purusha. Contact: psluvita@purusharc.org 3 Researcher in Koperasi Riset Purusha; Editor of Jurnal IndoProgress. Contact: yosieprodigy@gmail.com 1 1 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. called new media era, we see the advent of a much more different picture of social life with regard to society’s relations to private matters. More and more one might find one’s social media account being invaded by multitude of posts carrying a private contents. From the lunch menu picture, expression of irritation, self-consolation, personal prayer, vulgar insult, pedantic idiosyncratic commentary, all the way to a super valuable information like one is having an itchy back but is powerless to scratch it with her short hand. One does not have to spend so much effort to find these expressions in one’s social media account. These private quotidian contents are more and more invading the sphere of social media. One particular species of these private contents that we seek to discuss in the present paper, is one that has a dramatic effect. But one thing for sure, it is not the private contents per se that will occupy the focus of the discussion, but only insofar that private content being publicly posted by a kind of subject out of this subject’s personal story, her personal life drama. Having a dramatic life is one thing, but making it public is completely another thing that attracts further analysis. Everybody surely has drama – personal story, misery, happiness, sadness, romance and erotica. People also share these stories to others, ones with a qualified proximity. But telling these stories randomly in public without a definite knowledge as to the audience: this is historically a new phenomena. The present article endeavors at making a preliminary account of this new phenomena by using Indonesian Facebook and Twitter users as its case. The overall aim of the article is to attempt to historicize these “publicized privates” phenomena in the new media landscape. By historicizing, we mean an effort to situate the phenomena in a wider social context within which it emerges, and then draw its social implication. Specifically, we would situate the phenomena in the context of neoliberal capitalism. Particularly in how it produces a kind of subjectivity that serves to strengthen and reify the system through everyday practices, and in our case, in today’s communicative capitalism. Also the reader must be aware that from the outset, our discussion is intended not only to describe the situation, but most importantly to interrogate possibilities to transform it. Carrying these ambitions in its baggage, the discussion is divided into five sections. It begins firstly by observing the noisy dynamics inside the two platforms and figuring out a kind of subject defined by its dramatic activity. This activity is what will be called dramatization. Jacques Lacan’s theory of desire and sublimation will serve as lenses to further elaborate the concept of dramatization. It will argue that dramatization is a specific mode of desiring in our present new media era. Second section extrapolates from Michel Foucault’s 2 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. genealogy of neoliberalism an hypothesis that dramatization being a further consequence of late neoliberal-capitalist democracy (NCD). Particular attention is given to the notion of ‘privatization’ which serves as the activity of neoliberal homo economicus. Third section shows how new media provides channels through its interface and algorithm for the homo economicus to intensify and extensify privatization into the (virtual) public sphere. Fourth section tries to see dramatization as a kind of work, done by a kind of labor, producing a kind of value, paid by a kind of wage, and thereby forming a new kind of class: the dramatic class. Putting the discussion in the affective turn in social theory, the dramatic class is populated by people whose affective capacity being expropriated by the Capital through the complex constellation of new media technology. Dramatic class does not have autonomy of affect, it has only artificial freedom of affect inside the circuit built by the complex algorithm of new media. We, the authors, hope that the last section may provide a useful concluding discussion as to many implications of the thesis, and how to redirect our affective capacity through new media’s architecture to dramatically bring about conclusive drama to the neoliberal-capitalist system. Drama, Dramatization and Dramatic Subjects Before embarking on abstract theoretical discussion, we would like the reader to take a sip of what we seek to theorize. Random example, from Twitter, a “selebtweet” @radityadika once tweeted, “Kucing gue kasian deh, makin tua makin susah dapet pacar soalnya dia udah kapok dikecewain terus” [What a poor cat of mine, the older it becomes, the more difficult it gets a lover since it already had enough been disappointed]. Should there was a man from 1950s travelled here now and was given this tweet to read, he would most likely guess that the cat of @radityadika is an important cat, a special cat, or having a certain special quality that deserves public attention. That man would then probably got dizzy when he tried to seriously interpret the following words: “difficult to gets a lover? Had enough been disappointed? A cat? What the….” Another random example from our Facebook friend (that in no way always meaning our actual friend), “Semalam mimpi naik angkot bareng AyenJKT48 dari Tokyo ke Yokohama buat event hensek Supirnya cw cakep yang mirip Sakura Mana <3.” 3 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. A dry, tedious joke that most Indonesians are aware of, is when somebody is telling a story (often long) of no relevance to whom he is telling it to, and he is then asked “who?” For which he would replies, “me” (if that story concern himself), and forthrightly and blatantly gets the concluding retort, “who asks?!” As for the facebook post, we fail to see the public relevance of that friend dreaming of sharing a same public transport with a girl-band singer, Ayen JKT48, from Tokyo to Yokohama, nor our having a knowledge of that friend’s stupid fancy dream. But still, we cannot resist that post appears in our facebook home page in the first place. The great news is that sometimes, they’re coming with pictures! These are spontaneous examples of publicized privates that we deem as having dramatic contents. So, what is this drama thingy? What makes a drama, a drama? Looking to Sociology’s canonical text of Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, one might say that a subject is performing a drama in the social front stage as its strategy to meet the expectation, the norms, and the values that are embedded in the society. Goffman’s dramaturgical approach suggests that identity is a role performed by a subject in a specific spatial-temporal context. Identity, is then, perceived as something that is fluid, depending on the context of social interaction. Behind the curtain, there is a back stage wherein a subject’s real identity dwells, remain hidden (or repressed) from the public exposure. Subject’s behavior will surely be different here from that they play in the front stage. It is ‘drama’ that the subject plays in its front stage. From the field of drama studies, we might learn that a drama is aiming at delivering a story to a set of audience. This deliverance is carried out by performing a kind of dramatic character, through a plot that leads to a particular ending. 4 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. “The goal of a drama is to make audience perceive what is intuitively called a ‘story’ by exhibiting the actions of some characters (in conflict); actions are organized in a plot; the plot moves toward a direction. The notions of direction, character (also called dramatis persona) and plot, pervasive throughout the literature on drama analysis, are the three components of the directional level of [drama analysis].”4 But what makes the audience wants to sit and watch the drama? The drama performers must always aware that their drama will only have audience if it is interesting for that audience. Otherwise, they would have empty seats. Drama performers must then be able to create and perform a story that is in a way strong enough to draw their audience to immerse themselves in the story. In other words, the drama must have the capability to invite the audience to find themselves in it. This is why a cunning drama performer is adept at translating a personal story into a publicly relevant story. “The poet and dramatist, far from being an isolated imaginer, was a builder and creator of a human depth and a new human interior that was related to the universe,” says William Lynch.5 The more the drama attracts audience, the wider the story’s implications reach the social life. However, if one adopts a psychoanalytic perspective provided by Jacques Lacan, things will get even more convoluted. The logic of dramatization is perfectly matched with Lacan’s notion of ‘sublimation’ he discusses in Seminar 7: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Sublimation, he says following Freud, is a specific mode of desiring that proceeds by diverting libidinal drive toward socially valued objects or expressions. Sublimation “creates a socially recognized values.”6 It is the mechanism in play when a subject console himself that a killing spree he is about to do is justified as a crusader, for example. Social recognition plays an important role in both psychoanalysts’ theorizing. However, for Lacan unlike Freud, the diversion is in no way concerned the desired object, but rather the status of this desired object.7 With sublimation, the desired object will be elevated to the dignified status of “beyond-the-signified,”8 of a sublime object. Ask any naïf participant of the Earth Hour movement, they would say that their act of turning off electricity for an hour (a desired object) as doing a big thing for the obscure mother earth (a sublime object). (But do have a pity not to ask them how that even be logically possible). Rossana Damiano, Vincenzo Lombardo, Antonio Pizzo, “Formal Encoding of Drama Ontology,” in G. Subsol, ed., Virtual Storytelling: Using Virtual Reality Technologies for Storytelling (Springer, 2005), p. 98, italics in original text. 5 William F. Lynch, “The Drama of the Mind: An Ontology of the Imagination,” Notre Dame English Journal, 13, 1 (Fall, 1980), p. 28. 6 Jacques Lacan, Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 1992), p. 107. 7 Idem., p. 112. 8 Idem., p. 125. See also Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (Verso, 1989) 4 5 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. As sublimation, dramatization is then an act of staging a personal story by enclosing it in a socially accepted values in a way that might be of the interest of social others. The subject doing this act of dramatization is what will then be called a dramatic subject. Dramatization consists in a move to fictionalize a plot or a story, imbuing it with socially relevant contents, and performing it publicly. The subject assumes a role, a position, in that already fictionalized plot. So, dramatization is also an active form of subjectification, in that a dramatic subject makes an artistic effort (decorating fictitious settings, creating a storyline, designating a role, picking up catchy lines, etc.) in order to become an imaginary persona, an idealized ego. The goal of dramatization however is not simply to be the desired subject or persona. Like in any subjectification, by way of dramatization the dramatic subject’s most anticipated desire is what (s)he expected to get by, and only by, assuming the persona. In other words, the subject extracts enjoyment of being the locus of attention. The example is pervasive in our new media-scape. When we quote a line from a thick book of Karl Marx, for example, it is often not the implication of Marx’s word that we desire, but rather what we are seen as when we quote that words of Marx. So, in the cosmology of Goffman’s dramaturgy, a subject would perform well in the front stage not in order to be simply pretending to submit to a set of socially acceptable norms. More than that, it is only by performing that social role, a subject may acquire an identity. But one must not be fail to recognize again that this identity is not the ultimate goal. Rather, a narcissistic desire of being recognized, being accepted, and even being loved when that subject assume an identity, a social role. This would then challenge our conservative assumption that, somehow, a dramaturgical subject still retains its authentic identity in the darky backstage while at the daylight front stage it enacts a specific social role. No. It is precisely only at the front stage, the subject acquires its identity. Behind the social mask it wears, in the backstage, it is just nothing. Of course, de facto, a subject already has bundles of identity (race, religious, ideological, etc.) before it assumes a social role. But to be sure, an identity is acquired only in the social front stage, is given only by others. Without these others, there would never be an identity. Only in relation with others, can a subject acquire an identity. If this is granted, one could then review the bundles of identity a subject supposedly has before it assumes a social role, and wonder: are this bundles of identity have simply there already before the subject play a role in the social front stage? One does not have to think twice to say ‘no’. Identity is acquired when a subject enters into a spatial-temporal relations (read: a stage) with the others. This “others” does not always have to be human, but it could also be things, ideas, 6 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. languages, images, etc. – everything that is exterior to the subject. A Javanese would be a Javanese when it enters into relations with a group of people, sharing a set of practices, and enclosing themselves with a certain narration of nationhood. The same thing happens with a smoker, who would only be a smoker when it enter into relations with a wrapped tobacco called cigarette.9 Outside these relations, a subject is a non-recognized entity, a nothing. Yet, a nothing that desires identity. (Yosie discusses this topic in length in his Asal-Usul Kedaulatan should one wishes to elaborate it further). Another implication is concerning the status of the others in this dramatization processes. The others, in our case, manifest in the figure of audience. The audience: who are they? Are they simply those who watch the dramatic performance? No. If we underestimate the audience as simply “those who watch,” we are not only fail to recognize the status of the audience’s watch as an object of desire for the subject, but we also neglect the fact the audience does not actually need to exist at all! A subject dramatizes a performance by assuming a certain role is never because it respects that stupid role. On the contrary, a subject is willing to dramatize a role only because it expects to be watched by the audience. The audience is expected to give a watch, which is what a dramatic subject desires. Indeed, “a watch” might legitimately be translated into our Facebook and Twitter glossaries such as “a like,” “a reply,” “a comment,” “a retweet,” “a favorite,” “a share,” etc. But then what does it mean that the audience does not actually need to exist? Take a simple example of a stage-fright. When he rehearses a play, he would do it repeatedly without concrete audience but with a seriousness as if the audience seats are full. It suffices us to conclude that audience of drama resembles to what Lacan’s call a supposed subject.10 The audience exists in fantasy, and this becomes the fundamental condition on which the dramatic performance is meaningful. Without this fantasized audience, there would be no drama at all. But not only is the existence of the audience that is being fantasized, the predicate of the audience also is fantasized. ‘The watch’ of the audience is being supposed by the subject whenever he performs his drama. It is clear that the audience is a supposed subject that is supposed to watch the dramatic subject. We hope that this exposition of dramatization from the point of view of Lacanian psychoanalytic sublimation is sufficient enough to make the reader well-equipped to We have in mind the discussion of individuation in the thought of Gilbert Simondon and Gilles Deleuze, and also the discursive-practical formation of subject in the works of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. 10 Jacques Lacan, Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (Penguin Books, 1987), h. 232. 9 7 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. comprehend this sarcasm we found on the net: “We were told by our parents not to talk to strangers. Now with Twitter, we even talk to somebody we are not so sure exists or not.” The good thing, if any, is that Twitter is telling us to be optimists: keep tweeting even if we do not know whether there effectively are somebody reading it. Or replying it. Or retweeting it. From Democratization to Dramatization One might ask what democratization has to do with dramatization. Dramatization could eventual be a further consequence, if not excess, of late neoliberal democracy. In this section, we are not going to claim that these two phenomena have a direct causal link. We will put the notion of democratization and dramatization as two independent events that collide in today’s new media environment. We would like to elaborate how late neoliberal democracy, its promise of freedom, participation, and the Neoliberal Homo economicus it requires, is what is helping to constitute the possibilities for the dramatic subject –the one who are performing the dramatization, for dramatization is an act— to exist in the first place. This section will then elaborate dramatization as an act that is urged by the emergence of the dramatic subject under neoliberal democracy. To finally reach that claim, first, we must start from the grounding assumption that neoliberal capitalism is not only a matter of production of economic activities. It extends further to the production of social relations –of rationality, subjectivity, even way of life. That way, the logic of market will be in the society itself. This social reconstruction of the self –or new modes of govermentality11 (a manner, or mentality), one might say—creates a social condition that supports the economic production in the neoliberal context in which people are governed, govern themselves, and control each other.12 In The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault calls this type of subjectivity as neoliberal homo economicus. To understand more of it, we will briefly elaborate what neoliberal homo economicus is. Homo economicus is a term that places human as a subject of economy, making exchange as a base of social matrix. It is the subjectivity that both classical and neo liberalism have. This kind of subjectivity are argued to be the common thing within classical and neo liberalism. Classical liberalism stressed the notion of exchange in human activities; for one can just exchange their goods while the market works by itself. Laissez-faire policy where the state should not interfere with the market’s “invisible hand” is directly involved with the logic of classical liberalism. What makes it different from neoliberalism is on the notion of Jason Read, “A Genealogy of Homo-Economicus: Neoliberalism and the Production of Subjectivity”, Foucault Studies, No 6, (February 2009), 29 12 Ibid. 11 8 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. competition. This shift happened because when exchange is viewed as natural in the classical liberalism, twentieth-century neoliberals viewed competition as an artificial relation that must be maintained to support market from any form of monopoly and state intervention. What Foucault means as ‘neo’-liberal homo economicus is a shift of subjectivity that no longer put exchange as the base of this subject of economy, but competition. Thus making this neoliberal homo economicus a type of subjectivity that willingly and automatically sustains market logic of neoliberalism through self-governing without the interference of the state precisely because the logic of market is internalized as their identity. These subjects are willing to do so because rationally thinking, it is disadvantageous or even impossible to turn their backs on the notion of individual rights and freedom presented in the market logic of neoliberalism. The condition of freedom for these subjects to perform their market logic is what the state maintained; democracy. Democracy is commonly understood (or brutally reduced) as individual participation and freedom. But other definition, notably by Friedrich A. Hayek, argues that 'democracy [is] essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom'.13 The neoliberal homo economicus that is embedded with market logic will think that the condition presented by democracy is good –even righteous. Why would anyone refuse the idea of individual participation and freedom? One is free to express oneself, to participate, to be a part of the world. And that human right is guarded. What then becomes problematic for us is that when one thinks that it is normal to think like this, is just precisely how total the neoliberal take full grip on our lives. To be fair, what is at stake is not simply the moral dimension of the case, its “good or evil” question. It is if one is agreeing to the notion that autonomy posed by this freedom is simply a freedom to choose. But it is precisely where neoliberal homo economicus internalizes the market logic. This means that homo economicus is a rational being that thinks about what to lose and what to gain in a future-oriented mode, like some sort of investment. An entrepreneur that is free and has every right to use (or a more proper term of it, invest) his capital. What are their capital one might ask? It is their own selves that are the capital –human capital. To be specific, it is the ‘immaterial resources’ of the self that is affective and cognitive, which be the human capital.14 Within the horizon of human capital, life will be seen as a career, a life investment for a lifetime. F. Hayek. The Road to Serfdom. London. 1944. p. 52. Maurizio Lazzarato, “Neoliberalism in Action: Inequality, Insecurity and the Reconstitution of the Social”, Theory Culture Society, 26, (2009), 126. 13 14 9 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. To put this simply, neoliberal homo economicus as a subject under democracy is conditioned to be agentive and self-reliant. To be able to self-govern themselves; as their own capital as well as an investor’s action conduct. What is interesting is that everything that this subject does, when it consumes it also produces. Its action will always implies two different sides of the coin of what it does: governing/governed, consume/produce capitalist/proletariat. This will further urges neoliberal homo economicus to just do –to consume, to invest, to be active—since by doing so, they produce and earn (self-)capital gain. This endows the subject a sense of participation, of doing something, some sort of importance and accomplishment in the democratic environment. The fantasy of participation, as Jodi Dean would have it.15 This perspective allows all activities, even seemingly non-productive activities, to be theorized as forms of capital investment.16 It is precisely why Foucault sums up neoliberal homo economicus as an entrepreneur of himself.17 All they have to do is to choose rationally and act upon it –no matter how meaningless it would seem—and it will come back to the self as capital gain. In the neoliberal democratic system, one is an autonomous individual. Free to choose what things to study, free to speak in public, free to choose whom to be friend with (in terms of networking), to choose the person to get marry to, and even to choose what kind of food we eat. What one does today is an investment for tomorrow. Everything is thought as maximizing personal investment of its own human capital so it might be able to compete with other people(‘s capital self). Individuals are conditioned and urged to be active in the free market, while minimizing the involvement of the government. The power of the people, the system in which people rule themselves; Democracy! This self-reliant mentality of the system makes it rational –as a matter of fact, it is our right—to be active. This way of thinking thus will make us think that if we choose not to be active, it is a loss of opportunity and disadvantageous for ourselves. Following the mentality of an entrepreneur, homo economicus driven by competition will always be haunted by the feeling of being left behind by everyone else in the competition. The homo economicus is urged to perform: to participate, to become more agentive, decisionistic, voluntaristic and vital market agents18 by their own free will. Jodi Dean, Blog Theory: Feedback and Capture in the Circuits of Drive (Polity Press, 2010). Andrew Dilts, “From ‘entrepreneur of the self’ to ‘care of the self’: Neoliberal Governmentality and Foucault’s Ethics”, 2010, 6 17 Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 226 18 Sam Binkley, "The Perilous Freedoms of Consumption: Toward a Theory of the Conduct of Consumer Conduct” Journal for Cultural Research, 10: 4 (October 2006) 15 16 10 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. The kind of subjectivity that will continue to actively conform the system. But what is this all have to do with dramatization? So this is where things got intertwined. Democratization that serves as a condition that makes it possible for individual participation based on the notion personal freedom to choose, along with this type of subjectivity that urged self-improvement, self-participation, self-investment, and self-governing under the fantasy of participation creates some sort of new activity: dramatization. The important part to highlight is that because this subjectivity considered subjects as autonomous individuals, where they see everything for their personal interest –every choice as an investment of the self— and thus, they tend to privatize everything. This means that they are taking things as personal matter. Privatization is the rational activity of the neoliberal homo economicus. Every choice, everything they see as an opportunity, everything they consume is rationalized into them –thus, privatize it. They see themselves in everything. A chronic individualization (not to mention narcissistic) give rises when the entrepreneur privatizes all aspects of life. Dramatization is eventually the excessive consequence of this neoliberal homo economicus’ activity. Meanwhile the potential to dramatize personal life (since it’s the dramatic capital) emerges alongside the base of neoliberal homo economicus. The privatization of everything, including public spaces, is at the heart of the act of dramatization. Considering the act of dramatization is to put things into personal matter, thus making the notion of self-agency in privatizing an important variable, public space is a site that is considered to be the theatre. After all, by the logic of neoliberalism, the market is a site to exercise our freedom of expression. This makes that the public space will be considered as an opportunity site to make use of; sites that will help nurture the self in the self-investment. This kind of subjectivity would prompt the dramatic subjects to think that in every activity they enact stars themselves below the limelight. The drama they make out of their own immaterial resources is the outcome of their labor and investment. Public space is a theater where, like market, are a site to also compete with other individuals; this includes the social media. Benefits include cultural and other non-monetary gains along with improvement in earnings and occupations, while costs usually depend mainly on the foregone value of the time spent on these investments.19 This means, something like attention, popularity, sympathy, or simply responds (whether it is bad or good) is the 19 Becker, G. S., "Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Life." (Nobel Foundation, 1993), p. 43. 11 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. outcome of this kind of drama investment. It all depends on what benefit that are desired or expected to achieve in these kind of dramatic investment, although we can argue here that the affective responds are highlighted. This is how quickly democratization turns into dramatization. For the conditions under democracy, along with the mentality of the ideal subjects under the system, is providing a fertile ground for the emergence of dramatization. Perhaps it is an excessive consequence of neoliberal democracy, but the correlation between the two cannot be more obvious. In the next section, this form of dramatization will be analyzed from the lens of new media and shows that dramatization can materialize differently in media platform following the logic of the media itself. Dramatic Labor: Beyond Free Labor In earlier section we have already elaborated the correlation between democracy and the media itself in giving conditions for certain subjectivity to emerge, which is Dramatic Subjects. As for our wager, dramatization could eventual be a further consequence, if not excess, of democratization. Is not a phrase like “see if you find any product you like here. If you’re not happy with it, you can feel free to leave” that is heard quite common in stores can be re-phrased as, mutatis mutandis, “if you don’t like my post, feel free to block/unshared/unfollowed me” that has become a common “norm” in the sphere of today’s social media? This means that what one does in social media, including self-willing dramatization of personal stories, is a calculative activity par excellence. In this section we will show how the act of dramatization is captured and transformed into a kind of work in the current, to use Jodi Dean’s diagnosis, communicative capitalism.20 We argue that a dramatic subject does certain work that creates value in the terrain of complex new media platform, which makes them a labor we call Dramatic Labor. New media is a curious phenomenon. As previous section elaborates how new media play part to entrap the desire of the dramatic subjects –all the promise and possibilities entrusted in those media circuits— flares the discussion on how it further affect human lives. The rise of new media increases new engagement with emotional and affectivity in the mid1990s. The so-called “Affective Turn” in the social theory, identified by Patricia Clough among others, marking its focus around the notion of labor (in fact, different kind of labor) that begins to gain currency alongside the new media dynamics. From affective labor Jodi Dean, Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics (Duke Univ. Press, 2009). 20 12 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. (Terranova, Hardt and Negri), emotional labor (Poynter), immaterial labor, free labor, creative labor (Florida, Reich), network labor, precarious labor, and so forth. Due to the emotional nature that is embedded in the ‘personal’ aspect of human in the dramatic labor, we will discuss it under the category of affective labor. Hence, it could be legit to say that a dramatic subject, as labor, does affective work, to produce affective form of value, crystallized in an affective form of product, in order to create a commodity that is affective effects. It is this affective form of value that is also being expropriated by the capital that in its turn renders dramatic labor a proletariat deprived its autonomy of affective production. We call this affectariat. Being closely related to the notion of psyche as it may, dramatic labor must be closely scrutinized in relations to its similar terms such as affect, emotion, feeling, and mind. We contend that psyche and affect shares a synonymy, but must be distinguished from that or emotion, feeling and mind. Moreover, affect must include both the body and the mind. Baruch Spinoza, a Dutch philosopher during the age of Enlightenment, argues that affect needs to consist in two autonomous but parallel aspects; the minds power to think and the body’s power to act. But one thing for sure, affect itself is distinct from emotion; it is the unresolvable tension between the action and passion of the mind –of the power to affect and the power to be affected. Affect is active; it is what makes the tension possible, a relation of power played in between. Affection will refer to emotional sentiment and feelings of the mind, while the body will be understand in terms of affective capacities.21 Antonio Negri (over-)simplifies Spinoza’s conception of affect into a mere “power to act.”22 Dramatic labor that has an affective dimension to it thus will have to be analyzed thoroughly within the emotional and material aspect of it in the current new media (i.e. Facebook posts and Twitter’s tweets). Dramatic labor under communicative capitalism then prompts to a worrisome situation. Dramatic labor is most likely, like most affective labor, conditioned to be a happy and free labor. The concepts of affective and emotional labor are often employed to grasp these specific forms of investment, valorization and exploitation of the subjectivity of the workers. Tiziana Terranova is one of a number of writers to identify the emotional and passionate character of new media work – she describes ‘free labor on the Net’ as voluntarily given and enjoyable.23 Affective Turn, 22 A. Athanasiou, P. Hantzaroula, and K. Yannakopoulos, “Towards a New Epistemology: The "Affective Turn"”, Historein/Ιστορείν vol.8, nefeli publishing (2011), content can be downloaded at http://www.nnet.gr/historein/historeinfiles/histvolumes/hist08/historein8-intro.pdf 23 Helen Kennedy, “Going the Extra Mile: Emotional and Commercial Imperatives in New Media Work”, The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies Vol 15, 2 (2009), 179. 21 22 13 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. Free labor, however, is not necessarily exploited labor. Within the early virtual communities, we are told, labor was really free: the labor of building a community was not compensated by great financial rewards (it was therefore “free,” unpaid), but it was also willingly conceded in exchange for the pleasures of communication and exchange (it was therefore “free,” pleasurable, not imposed)24 What Terranova stresses in what she meant by ‘free’ labor is the monetary value from it –different from ‘free’ as in autonomous like the focus we’re trying to build here. True that this labor enjoys dramatizing public space as a way to exercise their freedom and expressing their affective capability to fulfill their narcissistic desire (as the first section already elaborated). It expects some kind of affective responds from whomever reading it. This makes a dramatic labor being much more than merely free labor Terranova has in mind. Free labor focuses on the fact that this legit work with countless working hours that does not get paid, what they enjoy doing is exploited.25 But we concern about what the Capital expropriates in dramatic labor through complexity of new media technology; the human affective autonomy. Let’s do a simple simulation on how affective capability of human can be valorized into capital value to prove our claim. On June 16th, Dahlan Iskan, known as the former Minister of State-Owned Enterprises, tweeted a set of tweets (consisting five continuous tweets below) that performs dramatization. “Now it’s 10PM at the Charlotte airport. It was supposed to fly to Milwaukee at 9.40PM but got delayed and delayed. Finally it’s announced that the plane was canceled. What is interesting> 2 [Skrg jam 22.00 di bndara Charlotte. Mestinya 19.40 terbang ke Milwaukee tp delay n delay. Akhirnya diumumkan pswt dibatalkan. Yg menarik >2], “(3)There were only 3 counter attendance. Serving one whole plane passangers. All lined up nicely. No one grumbles and swamming the counter.>4” [(3) Ptugas counter hanya 3 org. Melayani penumpang satu pesawat. Semua antre tertib. Tidak ada yg ngomel2 atau coba2 mengerubungi counter.>4], “(4)I got the last on the line. Doesn’t know when to reach the front. If it’s possible, will change course to Chicago, then goes to Madison by land.>5” [(4)Sy dpt antrean paling blakang. Blm tahu jam brp sampai di depan. Kalau bisa, akan pindah tujuan Chicago, lalu jalan darat ke Madison. >5], “(5)Tomorrow morning will have to review new founded fusi plasm system for producing neutron without neuklear reactor. It was predicted to occur on 2050.>6”[(5) Bsk pagi hrs tinjau penemuan baru sistem fusi plasma utk produksi neutron tanpa reaktor nuklir. Dulu diramalkan baru bs terjadi 2050. >6], Tiziana Terranova, “Free labour: producing culture for the digital economy,” Social Text, 10, 2 (2000), 48. According to Terranova, “Free Labour”where she foregrounds tensions and contradictions as these ‘productive activities … are pleasurably embraced and at the same time often shamelessly exploited’. Tiziana Terranova, Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age (England: Pluto Press, 2004), 216. 24 25 14 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. “(6)Earlier this afternoon in Washington DC, a partnership with State-owned Enterprises has been signed. Tries to tweet while queuing turns out to relax my mind” [(6) Siang td di Washington DC, kerjasama dg BUMN sdh ditandatangani. Sambil antre gini mencoba twitt lg ternyata pikiran bisa lbh santai (.)] This set of tweets focused on the figure of “I”, therefore personal and not to mention that he expresses the need for whomever looks and follows his timeline will have some kind of interest to know about his schedule and what he’s doing. He sublimating his private moment and turns it into a supposedly valuable information that is important for us to know (notice the last tweet where he put private matter along with public interest of successful government partnership). Hence, he is exerting his affective labor to privatize the public space that Twitter provides. And, yes, we will argue that these tweets are labor simply because by doing –or should we say, tweeting—it, they create value; a form of value that is not money.26 Dramatic labor does their value-making work that is extracted from its affective capability; e.g. telling one’s personal feeling about why and how one thinks his/her love of life is the best person ever (and vice versa), what kind of day one’s having, what is one doing, future plans, aspiration, etc. This dramatic labor, under constraint of media platform –let’s say, Twitter—will have to materialize their affective capability to produce a set of tweets. This is why Iskan will have to transmit what he wishes to express by way of his affective capability into words under 140 letters, and preferably with hashtags. Under complex algorithm, what he just did then generates values for Twitter Inc., in a way that these complex algorithms commodify the tweets into products and capitalize it for Twitter’s monetary gain. A sample of what this algorithm do is turning this affection-turn-tweets into ‘firehose’ or public data that analyzes consumer trends, issues, and hashtag history.27 This becomes a distinctive feature (or a competitive advantage) of the provider –Twitter in this case. But of course, with no hashtag it is also possible to generate and commodify information based on key words. Not to mention that the dramatic role Iskan plays out –his social value as mentioned in the first section—is also being expropriated by Twitter in a sense that his identity is reduced as a mere account alongside other millions of accounts and accumulated together to be a valuable number to represents a potential market site for ads company. This simulates how value is produced by dramatic labor and how this value is extracted, accumulated, and commodified to produce monetary gain that doesn’t come back to the labor; exploitation of affective value. Further discussion of this for curious readers can consult to Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt’s “Value and Affect”, boundary 2 Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer, 1999).. 27 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-24397472 26 15 PAPER IS STILL IN ROUGH DRAFT VERSION. CONTACT THE AUTHORS FOR CITATION. Then, this labor activity create (and is expected to create) affective effects. It may have an affective ads effect, for example, that ‘supports’ or at least viralizes certain issues, behavior, opinion, stories, and so forth; this means that it is possible to have a campaign material or form of voluntary ads. What makes dramatic labor a free and happy labor then emerges because the form of ‘wage’ they (desired to) get is not in the form of money but it’s in the affective effects they produce. It is like a self-loop when the effect that they create comes back as the appreciation they desired. Under the notion that it is their freedom that is urged to express in the public sphere, it is their personal and affective capability as a human that is supported to be expressed in the social media (Compose new tweet that welcomes you to type “what’s happening” and post new status on Facebook about “what’s on your mind”). This set of tweets that is expected to stir some affective effects; might that be a heartwarming emotions, envy, informative knowledge, and even hatred (although simply being talked about is fine enough) that will be received as the desired ‘wage’ of the dramatic labor’s work have to be transmitted and reduced in icons like Retweets, Favorites, Shared, Commented, Likes – all depends on the media platform but still, the complex algorithm can transfer, valorize, and commoditize affective capabilities of the Dramatic labor. Thus, these dramatic labors are indeed affectariats, which are deprived of their autonomy of affection, expropriated by the Capital through software’s algorithm-laden platform, and sold. This affectariat is waged, not by money, but by affective value-form – the pleasure that feeds their narcissistic desire invested in dramatization. And, yes, they are deprived of their autonomy of affection in the sense that they are free do express and materialize their affective capability, but only within the boundaries of media platform. Dramatic class doesn’t have autonomy of affect; it has only artificial freedom of affect inside the circuit built by the complex algorithm of new media. This is where this affectariats as a group of people that their autonomy has been stripped constitute a class we would like to call a Dramatic Class. This notion of autonomy is different with the neoliberal capitalism’s autonomy that are linked to individual freedom; to the freedom to choose –to choose within regulated choices that makes it possible for the State to exercise power by governing from distance. It makes us unable to genuinely be free; that is the possibility to do otherwise –to be beyond actors and authors of one’s own drama, to not have one’s affective capability be expropriated. 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