-- By JustinColannino - 14 Jan 2010

Despite John Henry's best efforts, we now depend on mechanization to produce our railroads. Since then, mass production has poured into our culture - from railroads to automobiles, household goods, clothing, music, and books. This essay will first discuss the implications of mechanization on our ability to shape who we are and the society surrounding us, and how the internet presents a way for us to reassert our autonomy to shape who we are.

'A man ain't nothin' but a man'

Human beings are made of culture. In many ways, each of us is a product of what we are exposed to. What we want, like, and believe varies depending on where we are born and who our parents are. Due to each of our particular experiences growing up, we express different preferences. Holmes loves granite rocks and barberry bushes, while I prefer tree-lined side streets with cracks filled in with tar. What we choose to do effects the choices that others make. We react to what we experience in others - manners, gestures, clothing, and goods. What others wear influences our idea of fashion, what we make influences how others make things, and when you read my last sentience it interacts with your mental picture producing some new state, perhaps not the one I intended. This concept can be modeled by imagining that what we do ripples out around us to those able to observe us shaping their world view, which in turn influences their actions, creating ripples back from them, shaping who we are out of the dynamic system called culture.

'The Captain said to John Henry, I'm gonna bring that steam drill 'round'

The mechanized production of goods, services, and artistic works in this system effects the way that culture is produced too. Instead of the democratic picture - with each of us producing the same amplitude of ripples throughout the system - mechanized production and delivery has the ability to create shockwaves through the culture system, so that those with control over such production have an asynchronous ability to shape who we all are. This ability has wide ranging effects into each and every portion of our lives. How we use computers, how we learn to think, what label (or lack thereof) we want to wear on our persons, our political views, what constitutes a 'normal' relationship or frame of mind, and what we laugh about with our friends. In this sense, the designers of the mass produced goods influence what we want, what we do, and who we are.

[We have all experienced this phenomena. Examples if space?]

This does not imply that an average person is powerless to shape ourselves against these forces. Quite the opposite, this model of our system of culture describes a situation where we shape ourselves out of the culture that surrounds us. The implication is, however, that the control over this mass production effects the building blocks out of which we make ourselves, yielding a great deal of influence concerning who we are to those in control of the mechanization.

'That ain't no storm, Captain, that's just my hammer in the air'

The internet