The 13th century development of geometry and abstract mathematics changed how we perceived the environment and our social relationships. The fusion of this development with dominating visuals led, in the 18th century, to an explosion in administrative and statistical information. The role of technology in the social milieu became increasingly concerned with defining the deviations between normalcy and pathology. [9] Psychological testing for intelligence and university entrance [10] anticipated the battery of drug and psychological tests faced by applicants for trans-national corporations.

Stivers gives an informative overview of censuses and surveys, cost accounting and opinion polls. The 18th century growth in calculating probabilities was largely driven by the new elites: insurance actuaries and medical professionals. When the sociologist August Comte created Functionalism, he overthrew the Platonic and Christian utopias of Medieval Europe with the new Myths of Positivist science and unlimited Enlightenment progress. [11] Abstract mathematics and statistics became the frontline tools to reach the new utopias that these Enlightenment myths promised.

While Comte wanted to transform civilization through social engineering, Sir Francis Galton preferred to discover the gifted individuals (mutations) through eugenics. [12] The twin specters of eugenics and social engineering, hidden by impenetrable organizations and memory-erasing statistics would define the 20th century's dark heart. Operations research codified statistical categories and labels into psychographic profiles. To the uber-statistician, you are little more than the sum of your operationalized information: your e-mail inbox history, your favorite ring-tones, your rapid-fire instant messages.

Mass Media Magic: Advertising and Fabricated Images

Stivers's analysis of mass media offers a new spin on some familiar topics. The competition between William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer changed advertising and created a newspaper oligopoly. Hearst and Pulitzer were helped by the co-emergence of large department stores that booked large accounts. When Cyrus Curtis acquired The Saturday Evening Post in 1897 he innovated the tone of today's general interest and gossip magazines. [12]

The transition from word to visuals began around 1910 [13] and was hastened by public relations guru Edward Bernays, who argued that the scientific management mode of advertising could buffer the discord in a rapidly fragmenting society. [14] Yet Bernay's legacy was to accelerate this fragmentation into niche-groups through statistical analysis and image-management. Specifics are debated while the systemic links remain unseen. The conservative US media and political Right, for example, attack government as bureaucratic yet ignores the reality that management by objectives has made companies inefficient. [15]

Guy Debord and the Situationist Internationale railed against these cognitive blind-spots and the socioeconomic structures that turned people into commodities. Debord echoed warnings by Soren Kierkegaard that the cultural obsession with celebrity and image still allows self-reflection while undermining the individual's ability to act and make moral choices. Envy unifies groups whose prerogative becomes the leveling of distinguished individuals. Public opinion embodies the "escape valve" to express fears while hiding behind the mask of pseudo-cheerfulness. [16]

By the late 19th century the Protestant work ethic had dominated American life. Technology and Corporatism redefined individual virtues: happiness was consumptive ability, health was bodily perfection and success was group-oriented. This redefinition of the Hierarchy of Needs was embedded in the Myth of Technological Utopianism that was communicated through the new mythology of advertising. [17] Individual success was subjugated to new corporate religions and identity-bonding festivals. One of the most perceptive sections of Stivers’s book is an in-depth analysis of television genres as mythological symbols that codified the new Hierarchy of Needs. [18] Sports programs divulge an endless stream of statistics and advice about professional techniques (success). Children's programs and game shows have become a thin veil for consumer advertisements (happiness). News programs focus on what Elias Canetti calls "the moment of power" (survival). Soap operas 'heal' characters by confronting daily problems and gaining "psychological insight” (health). Talk shows can be divided into celebrity-driven celebrations of conspicuous wealth and ordinary people who rise above distressing circumstances (happiness and health). Situation comedies meditate on how personal relationships can survive in contemporary life (happiness and health). Dramas fetishes technology and problem solving through interpersonal conflicts that usually degenerate into mindless violence and psychosexual imagery (success and health).

Mass media outwardly proclaims our individuality while inwardly seeking to channel our self-expression into consumption and technological utopianism. Even the lone rebel, the fringe subculture, the ‘shock’ tactics are part of this control system. The visual-emotional emphasis attracts our gaze, which is then covertly analyzed through statistical patterns and channeled into celebratory rituals. Dethrone the Grand Inquisitors by studying their secrets. Then disengage and contemplate the formless void.

The fusion of psychological, administrative and mass media magic continues to be deeply unsettling. It pollutes our future by trapping us in cynical existentialism and the nano-second moment. Embracing technology grows to be the solution. Psychological and administrative magic moulds our estranged subjectivity while mass media magic creates the shared contexts that define social meaning-making. Learn to tolerate ambiguity, to unify the intellect with emotions, and to live in the gaps if necessary.

Endnotes:

[1] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 29.

[2] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 3-4.

[3] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 24.

[4] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 22.

[5] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 52.

[6] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 64.

[7] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 68.

[8] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 45-46, 59.

[9] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 82-83, 94, 98.

[10] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 90-91.

[11] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 98.

[12] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 99.

[12] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 110-111.

[13] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 113.

[14] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 114-115.

[15] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 119-120.

[16] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 120, 122-124.

[17] Richard Stivers. Technology As Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational. New York: Continuum Press, 1999. 128-130.