Material & immaterial boundaries
Flecenstein, K.S. (2008). Cyberentics, ethos, and ethics: The plight of the bread-and-butter-fly. In
Worsham, L. & Olson, G.A. (Eds.) Plugged in: Technology, rhetoric, and culture in a posthuman age, pp. 323, Hampton Press, Inc: Cresskill, NJ.
Bay, J. L. (2008). Screening (in)formation: Bodies and writing in network culture. In Worsham, L. &
Olson, G.A. (Eds.) Plugged in: Technology, rhetoric, and culture in a posthuman age, pp. 25-40, Hampton
Press, Inc: Cresskill, NJ.
I decided to focus on the concept of material and immaterial boundaries and the blurring that occurs between for the
introduction and these first two chapters because I think that is what each one of them was talking about and had in
common. In my mapping out these chapters, I decided to set them up alongside Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
because I wanted to view a clearer picture than I had been imagining between what ethics meant then compared to
what they mean now in our “cyber world.”
Before I go any further, I would first like to define what material and immaterial means. Material essentially means
“substance” but I would also like to stress material also being considered a “finished” product. Immaterial means “not
consisting of matter” or also having no ‘substantial consequence.”
On stasis theory, Fleckenstein’s chapter resides in “Definition” because she has already established the fact that there
is a need for “cyberethos,” but it needs to be defined. However, the argument could be made that it also resides
somewhat in the area of “Policy,” because it does exist and something needs to be done about it. However, I would
make the argument that since we exist in a world of human laws and rules, we should try and clearly define what
cyberethos is by connecting it to some standard of ethics.
Bay’s chapter is in two areas of stasis theory, one in “Fact,” because of the theoretical argument she places out there
about “bodies” and “networked processes,” and in “Quality,” because she explores the affects, applications, and
implications of viewing “bodies” and “writing” from a networked theoretical framework.
The categories below show the examples or descriptions that Fleckenstein, Bay, and Aristotle give for each, as well as
the “blur” I think exists between the authors as well as their ideas.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Fleckenstein’s Material &
Immaterial Boundaries
Aristotle’s Ethical
Boundaries
Bay’s Material & Immaterial
Boundaries
Dematerializing &
Rematerializing ethics
Ethos, logos, pathos
The idea of a screen &
screening
Eunoia
“News of difference”
Cybernetics has
Subsystems
“bread-and-butter fly
age”
What is “information?”
The idea of what
constitutes a “body”
Reciprocity between
materiality & discourse
Virtue
“Preamble ecology of
Information pathways”
Temporally existing at
Same time: cyberethos
& pathways
Phronesis (practical
wisdom)
What constitutes a “body?”
Taylor’s complexity model
Machine screens scan, so
does the human body
“Embodied rhetoric”
Screen- to separate, filter
to conceal, to protect
Bodies are modalities of
of image, information, and
material object
Cyberethos is a
living system with
constraints
“Preamble screens”
Cyberethos requires us
to attend to the material
elements of any construction
of identity, of good
character
The “skin” as site of first
contact and sense of
boundary
Nonlinearity
Temporal displacement of
bodies viewed on the
screen
Non-linear temporal
patterns … they are
irreversible in time
“Rhizomal” body
assemblages
“Chaos theory”
“Smart mobs”
Cause-and-effect
reasoning is
complicated when
dealing with
cybernetic systems
Aristotle’s ethos can
be perceived as
“non-linear”
The idea of a
“wreader”
Cyberethos generates
Its own identity
From Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Book II (virtues)
Mean
fear and confidence
Courage: mean in fear and
confidence
Excess
no special name: exceeds in
fearlessness
Rash: exceeds in confidence
Deficiency
Cowardly: exceeds in fear and is
deficient in confidence
pleasures and pains
Temperance
Profligacy, dissipation, etc
scarcely occurs, but we may call it
Insensible
giving and getting (smaller
amounts of) money
Liberality (Rackham),
generosity (Sachs)
Prodigality (Rackham),
Wastefulness (Sachs)
Meanness (Rackham), Stinginess
(Sachs)
giving and getting greater
things
Magnificence
Tastelessness or Vulgarity
Paltriness (Rackham), Chintziness
(Sachs)
greater honor and dishonor
Greatness of Soul
Vanity
Smallness of Soul
small honors
no special name
Ambitious
Unambitious
anger
Gentleness
Irascibility (Rackham),
Irritability (Sachs)
Spiritlessness
truth
Truthfulness
Boastfulness: pretence as
exaggeration
Self-depreciation: pretence as
understatement
pleasantness and social
amusement
Wittiness (Rackham)
Charming (Sachs)
Buffoonery
Boorishness
general pleasantness in life
Friendliness
obsequious, if for no purpose
quarrelsome and surly
flatterer, if for own advantage
Finally, I would like to make a (limited) connection to the idea of “medical ethics.” I am doing this because I there are
some basic ideas/beliefs in medical ethics that are tied to some of the ideas above.
Six of the values that commonly apply to medical ethics discussions are:
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Autonomy - the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. (Voluntas aegroti suprema lex.)
Beneficence - a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. (Salus aegroti suprema lex.)
Non-maleficence - "first, do no harm" (primum non nocere).
Justice - concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment
(fairness and equality).
Dignity - the patient (and the person treating the patient) have the right to dignity.
Truthfulness and honesty - the concept of informed consent has increased in importance since
the historical events of the Doctors' Trial of the Nuremberg trials and Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
Values such as these do not give answers as to how to handle a particular situation, but provide a useful framework for
understanding conflicts.