Analog Cultures

New materialism is a type of perspective on the transformations of modernity that treats the world of objects in a special way. In this perspective, things become matters of the highest importance for people who treat material matters not only in their purely utilitarian dimension, but above all in relation to the various cultural meanings they carry. The universe of objects embedded in specific cultural orders and themselves producing certain cultural values is constantly expanding today with new components, most often of a digital nature and, because of this, less and less material, and more and more too ephemeral for the average user. Christopher Gamble, Joshua Hanan and Thomas Nail maintain that such a condition of reality means that the neglect of the material sphere in the currently dominant Western tradition leads to the emergence of a specific conceptual reaction—new materialism.1 According to this interpretation, material objects gain fresh dynamics, become animated and culturally expressive. The great return of materialism in Western social thought is, however, associated with a certain ideological burden related to the fact that this topic has long been appropriated by historical materialism, which reduces this aspect of human life to class conditions.2 New materialism is a completely different approach to the issue of the relationship between matter and being. It sheds light on the experience of users themselves. The raising of the issue of the performativity of the world of things by new materialists gives us insight into their proper social impact in the sense that the use of any object forces us to relate to it not only in terms of pure functionality, but also by taking a specific position on the meaning it carries, in order to ultimately gain a new meaning in action. Especially in the era of the hegemony of digital logic, such an approach may give rise to some criticism, because the performative dimension of things, as Gamble, Hanan and Nail note, sometimes entails the strengthening of the analog/digital opposition, redefinition of the role of science and invention, or fetishization of innovation itself.

It seems that in the world of accelerated technological development and the digital revolution of the Internet of Things, all areas of materiality will sooner or later be connected in a global network and completely digitized. Digital reality is essentially dematerialized. In this utopia, analog solutions are only a dusty museum exhibit in a great mausoleum of the diversity of the rightly bygone physical past. However, if we look at the growing interest in analog technologies and solutions expressed today, interestingly, by young people who have never had the chance to come into direct contact with them or be socialized among them, it becomes clear that the emerging phenomenon of analog cultures is increasingly often the driving force of certain changes with a global reach. In this sense, we can treat analog cultures in at least two ways—as an impulse for social transformation of interpersonal relations in a digitally saturated environment, as well as a strategy for coping with the effects of the digitization of lifestyles undertaken at the individual and collective level. The specificity of this phenomenon, regardless of the particular form it takes in a given context, is always based on three pillars: culturally defined nostalgia, analog technology and subversive performative action. This last component in particular gives analog cultures a significant dynamic that goes far beyond their particular social and historical grounding. However, all of them are united by an overwhelming human desire to include in today’s digitally defined everyday life meanings resulting directly from old objects used in new configurations of meanings. Their practical use and real effect resonating in the field of social relations allow us to better understand the processes of creating global learning communities. These communities bring together entities with various cultural backgrounds, competences and experience. They are united by the hybrid nature of the process of transmitting knowledge and skills, specific to analog cultures. Thus, analog cultures are by no means new digital Luddites fighting artificial intelligence algorithms from a lost position. They are rather a necessary response to new challenges resulting from the progressive mechanization of life and the digitalization of some of its fragments, which do not provide space for such an experience of the reality transforming before our eyes, which preserves the humanism of relationships, indicates the goals and meaning of human work, and defines the perspective of a holistic view of these processes. The value of analog cultures lies therefore in their role as an ontological signpost and a map that allows for skillful navigation between the digital Scylla of modernity and the analog Charybdis of history. This book is intended to be a useful tool and a set of guidelines for learning, working, or simply living in the digital world. Therefore, the concept formulated on its pages is developed in three main dimensions of the change in global culture—lifestyles, mobility, and iconography.

Some fragments of the chapters devoted to these dimensions of culture have already been published by me in the form of articles published in various scientific journals. A significant development of the leads indicated in them, the state of research, or conclusions drawn from reflection on analog cultures can be understood as a necessary step in the problematization of the role of matter in the digital environment in the context of human interactions, but also interactions occurring on the human-machine axis. This last problem is currently taking on a key role in the light of the progressive seizure by artificial intelligence algorithms of more and more footholds where previously human actions defined the framework and nature of all activities, cycles of production of goods or knowledge and innovation. Standing on the threshold of a revolution inspired by the widespread use of algorithmic solutions, we must simultaneously consider our position in many processes already regulated by artificial intelligence. In my opinion, we are not defeated in this fight to maintain the importance of the humanistic coefficient. It seems necessary, however, to redefine certain paths of reasoning about how people deal with new digital laws, and then to point to real solutions that serve not only to minimize the negative social costs of digital capitalism, but also to reformulate it in such a way that the common future will be a place where authentic creativity and self-development are still highly regarded as pedagogical values. The educational dimension of practicing analog cultures is therefore obvious and worthy of being brought closer to the modern reader.

Who is the creator? Who is the being who creates, produces and processes the cultural fabric of reality? Questions of this type invariably refer to the problem of human potential and creative abilities. This issue is still ambiguous today, and as Richard Sennett notes, “currently, studies of human potential often come down to the self-help or self-improvement industry.”3 On the other hand, however, they also touch on the issue of innovation and adaptability to external change. Hence, the focus of these questions is constantly connected with the formula of human existence, in which man expresses his self in a creative way, i.e., changes the surrounding environment in such a way as to bring its shape closer to his own internal universe, transforming and shaping it to his needs, and as a result obtaining a new quality. The anthropological formula of homo creator addresses this problem in a way oriented toward reconstructing the role played in human existence by the ability to process one’s environment. It also expresses “the idea that the human species does not blindly obey a biogrammar established by the laws of nature, nor is it necessarily shaped by social, cultural and psychological conditioning.”4

In the light of these words, homo creator shows not only a predisposition to go beyond the framework of the system proper to him, but also the ability to actively create his own history. Freeing himself from the shackles of historical rules is a cyclical act, but also one that is becoming increasingly complex in a somewhat cumulative way. It is connected with the accumulation of an increasingly broader scope of knowledge about how reality works in its physical sense. The material effects of human experimentation with the world take the form of technology or art. They can therefore fulfill a utilitarian or aesthetic function. However, they are always a work that is the culmination of creative activities performed by a subject who is, in most cases, aware of his actions. He constantly adds new elements, removes unnecessary and useless ones, or combines content that has not yet been combined into surprising hybrids. Creation is, in fact, a continuous process.

The act of creation is therefore performed by an active social actor, each time going beyond the limitations imposed on him. Such an assumption is in some contradiction with several intellectual traditions still alive in the social sciences, which also touch upon the problem of agency. The first of these is the sociological tradition, which places its roots in the thought of Emile Durkheim. According to Durkheim’s interpretation, the individual remains under the influence of objectified norms and social forces, adapting to the role assigned to him by the community to which he belongs. The normative umbrella that society extends over the individual is at the same time a set of directives referring to values, practices and ways of dealing with phenomena external to the individual. Durkheim admits, however, that “we should not assume in advance that a given practice or institution is conventional in nature.”5 The principles of social life are subject to change even in strictly formalized social systems. What remains important in sociology, which grew out of the theory of the author of the Principles of Sociological Method, in terms of defining the place of the individual in collective life is the structural connection of social facts in a system regulating the actions of the subject. In such a system, the subject is reduced to a large extent to an executor of systemic rules of action, and thus perpetuating social patterns in the relational dimension. Durkheim believed that education also plays such a role.

As the French scholar claimed, it is thanks to education that society constantly recreates the conditions of its existence.6 In his opinion, education and school systems function not only as a moral regulator and a tool for forming socially responsible individuals, capable of acting independently in accordance with the normative scheme established in a given community. Their role is much more significant. They are tasked with maintaining the social system in a state of equilibrium and strengthening the foundations for its further existence. In the Durkheimian perspective, creative processes taking place in society would be the result of development taking place at the level of the entire structure, and not of the grassroots initiative of entities aware of their potential.7 Social development, stimulated by education (especially the formalized school system), takes place both in the register of morality and in the social institutions or roles assumed by entities in the processes of adaptation to the social environment. In this case, individuals are somehow condemned to move within social boundaries only as far as the collectively shared norms allow. Durkheim’s vision of society did not leave much room for creative actions of the subject understood as an entity independent of collective expectations. In this classical sociological vision, man would remain mainly an element of a broader system of rules relating to the processes of producing and processing reality invariably filtered through the macro-perspective proper to a given community.