Inventing Electracy

ABI

Since my definition of electracy will likely resemble most others’ definitions, I won’t take the whole 750 words defining it, but instead will also discuss some points about the concept that either helped clarify or complicate the concept for me. Reading one book chapter and one online chapter did not give me the background knowledge I needed to get the most out of the analogies Ulmer makes between oral, literate and electrate culture.

Starting with my basic understanding of electracy, to me, the central idea of electracy lies in its analogy to literacy. Although I’m oversimplifying the concept, the easiest way for me to wrap my head around it is to think of it like technological literacy. I took a course about literacy as an undergraduate and I still remember my self-proposed project to become literate in the InDesign computer program. That required teaching myself how to navigate the program and use the tools in it to create a well-designed document. At that time, extending my understanding of literacy beyond “knowing how to read and write” was already a big leap for me to make, and now, extending my understanding of electracy to something beyond just “knowing how to use computers and the internet” is requiring a similar mental leap. As the Ulmer writes in the online chapter, electracy is “partly technological, partly institutional” (para. 4).

One part of the text that exemplifies my confusion is the quote, “Following Kant’s supplementing of the judgment of beauty with an analytic of the sublime, Derrida takes up the latter, to propose a thought of disgust, turning Kant’s idealism into a contemporary abjectism.” It appears that I need a vast theoretical/philosophical background in order to understand electracy.

What did clarify the point for me somewhat, though (or maybe it confused me more) was the chart, or Apparatus table, which contrasted different aspects of orality/literacy/electracy. Some of the aspects, such as institution (church/school/internet, respectively), seemed clear, but others raised questions for me, tor example, entertainment as the worldview of electracy, in contrast to orality’s religion and literacy’s science. Although Ulmer clarifies that he is talking about a shift and not a total replacement, I guess I have a hard time seeing how the worldviews of each (religion, science, and entertainment), can’t exist in a balanced way or work together. I’m probably misunderstanding what exactly Ulmer means by “worldview,” but it seems like electracy is adding on to the other worldviews instead of overshadowing them. For example, although most of the work I do is based in print literacy, there are still remnants of orality. Similarly, any “electrate” project I do will be informed by texts that I read and people I talk to.

The internet has changed the world, and that the change is happening at cultural and institutional levels. Each “apparatus” informs the others, and as a result, every paper I write will be somehow influenced by my experience with and knowledge of electrate culture. On the same note, instructors’ assignments will also be informed by electracy. For example, the podcast we did recently combined the three apparatuses- a recording of my voice, a cover memo, and the electrate slideshow component. This assignment allowed me to make a point in a different way. I could have written a paper describing the history of logos and the way it was defined by Aristotle, but the combination of the three components make the information more appealing to an audience that has never know life before electracy.

The final point I want to make about electracy is that, because electracy is still developing as a concept, we have a degree of control over what we do with it. As Ulmer writes in his chapter, “Since we have some choice in the matter and some responsibility for the outcome, what direction should we take? What policies should we adopt to guide our collective self-overcoming?” Ulmer then talks about pedagogy and how electracy aims “to do for the community as a whole what literacy did for the individuals within the community.” He appears to have a more collectivist view of the potential of electracy than the view many have had about literacy as an individual form of progressing through life. As I mentioned before, I’m still struggling to relate the concept of electracy to something beyond just being tech-savvy, but I’m not sure anyone fully understands the implications of electracy on the broader culture.