Synopsis 24-1-2018

Reading – Tash

The Electronic Revolution, by William Burroughs

What is it saying (thesis)? (800)
The Electronic Revolution is an essay by William S. Burroughs, first published in 1970. It follows his experimental period of writing, in which he became fascinated by the ‘cut-up’ technique, and the subversive power of the written and recorded word. The piece is divided into two parts, and is written in a variety of styles, from the more formal and scientific, to streams of consciousness and even poetry.

Part one, entitled “The Feedback from Watergate to the Garden of Eden” introduces us to Burroughs’ theory that the written word is, “literally a virus that made spoken word possible.” He posits that the ability to write and convey information across generations is the distinguishing feature of human beings. It is the thing which separates us from other animals, and makes us into “time-binding machines”. However, while other writers and scholars of grammatology often extol the virtues of the written word, Burroughs’ is suspicious, resistant. He sees human language, and especially the alphabetic, non-pictorial kind, as an “unrecognized virus” which has attained a “state of wholly benign equilibrium with its host.”

Burroughs continues on to describe the ‘word virus’ through metaphors, and also literally as a biological mutation. He brings us into the realm of science by putting forward a theory that apes evolved into humans as a consequence of a virus which, when it didn’t kill them, physically altered the shape of their throats and skulls. This alteration, he says, is what allowed the first humans to speak. Burroughs then makes comparisons and connections to the biblical Garden of Eden and man’s original sin. For him, the ‘unit of word and image’ is as dangerous, and potentially fatal as Adam and Eve’s forbidden fruit. Returning to the contemporary era, Burroughs warns: “So now with the tape recorders of Watergate and the fall out from atomic testing, the virus stirs uneasy in all your white throats.”

The second part of the essay deals further with the idea of the human voice as a weapon, and the power of communications technologies to control man’s thoughts and actions. It focuses on the potential uses of tape recording technology, and especially on the effect that playback has on the human psyche. “Some of the power in the word is released by simple playback, as anyone can verify who will take the time to experiment.” Following his hypothesis that the word is a virus, then playback becomes a weapon of mass infection. He puts forward several examples of the volatile relationship between reality, recording and playback, including one about how to incite a riot in a crowd, using spliced up tapes of previous riots. Here he infers that there is a fundamental connection between human psychology and language technologies, and that the disease/control/breakdown of one is just as impactful on the other.

Following this, Burroughs’ mistrust of mass media is one of the major themes of this text. Referring to The Invisible Generation, an earlier piece of writing in which he uses his famous ‘cut-up’ method, he talks about the “potential of thousands of people with recorders, portable and stationary, messages passed along like signal drums, of the President’s speech up and down the balconies, in and out open windows, through walls…” His tone is conspiratorial and energetic as he continues to stress the political function of recorded messages. “You can cut the mutter line of mass media and put the altered mutter line out in the streets with a tape recorder.”

Moving on from cut-ups, Burroughs starts to talk about voice and video scramblings. He compares scrambles to viruses, demonstrates through a series of wildly interjecting pieces of text, and contemplates their uses. Though his examples are often about creating fear and anxiety, he also wonders if these techniques could be used for good. “Is it possible to create a virus which will communicate calm and sweet reasonableness?”

The piece ends with a suggestion for resisting the potential dangers of the ‘word virus’. Burroughs wants to change the system at its root, proposing a new way of writing language, and therefore also the thinking and speaking of it: “A far-reaching biologic weapon can be forged from a new language… The aim of this project is to build up a language in which certain falsifications inherit in all existing western languages will be made incapable of formulation.”

What is its conclusion? (100)
William Burroughs’ basic theory that alphabets and languages contain a ‘virus’, leads him to devise a series of experiments, in an attempt to hack or even replicate the virus. In this way, his famous cut-up method is not just about formal or creative investigation, it is a means of subverting language, which he sees as an anonymous force of social control. The essay argues that we must not take the written word for granted – not its origins, nor its consequences. Ultimately, this piece is a call to action, to be more critical of mass media and how language can be used to influence and create events (real or imaginary).

What is your opinion? (100)

Burroughs erratic writing style is sometimes difficult to follow. But I find his unique point of view refreshing. Unlike Otto Neurath, for example, who sees language and the written word as a system of order and democracy, Burroughs stance is much more dystopian. He seems to be fascinated by the entropy of information, and obsessed by how to subvert and resist the ‘negentropy’ that Norbert Wiener posited. His distrust of language technologies is interesting. I would love to research how the current field of cybernetics deals with power and politics. What are the inherent biases in the English language? In other languages? In software? How can a book scanner reveal some of these inner workings, or subvert them? What other fields of 'language subversion' are there? Steganography?