Connecting the Dots: Deconstructing Boundaries

Last Monday I had the opportunity to bring the Connecting the Dots item for the Metanomics show. I decided to connect one of the main themes of the show, global diplomacy and relations between cultures, with my own experiences covering the opening of the Swedish Embassy in Second Life and with my fascination for the "deconstruction"-technique which I learned from the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

[Note from the editor: Don't let the mention of Derrida put you off. As I said to Roland after the show: Congratulations on being the first one to refer to Derrida on Metanomics, and one of the few in any forum to do so, and still be intelligible! --Rob B.]

One of the very first events I covered as a journalist in Second Life was the opening of the Swedish Embassy. I remind there was a helicopter to bring in the very important persons and a manifestation of avatars outside the building.

One of the themes of the protestors was that Second Life should be free from official buildings representing nation states and borders. Now a long time before these first experiences in Second Life, I was studying philosophy, and I’m fascinated by the work of the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida. And one of the key notions in his work is the deconstruction of borders and oppositions.

Now deconstruction, mind you, is not demolition nor abolition of borders. Deconstruction means something else. It pursues the meaning of a text to the point of undoing the oppositions on which the text is apparently founded and to the point of showing that the text is irreducibly complex and stable.

So this is rather theoretical, but one of the big examples that Derrida gave us is that of the opposition of speech versus writing. In our western tradition, speech is often considered as being superior because of the presence of the speaker, who can always assist her words.

It’s a bit like Socrates did when discussing on the marketplace and refusing to write down his teachings. Derrida, my favorite philosopher, showed us in exquisite detail how relative and difficult the so-called immediacy of speaking is and how the great conversations of Socrates came to us through the carefully crafted texts written by Plato.

So this is not to say that speaking and writing are the same. It is to say that it is tricky to define the differences in terms of simple oppositions. And I am really convinced that Virtual Worlds are beautiful examples of this.

I speak now to you live but I’m having texts around me. I can assist my words though I see you as avatars, and I cannot see your physical faces and bodies, I am here in this virtual auditorium, and yet I am far away. Virtuality cannot be understood by using simple opposition such as real versus the unreal.

Presence and absence, male and female, writing and speech can all be subjected to deconstruction. And trying to speak about those very real differences, but trying to accept also the instability and complexity of those differences. And I am convinced also that the same applies for nation states and cultures.

In this very concrete deconstructive environment of Second Life, I often feel like being in the United States. Second Life and the Metaverse at large reminds me of the Wild West of the risks, but also the enthusiasm and opportunities of the frontier states.

But, at the same time, it appears that U.S. citizens or North Americans are a minority now in Second Life. Furthermore, the impression I have now is that American friends tend to become a bit more European and European friends more American, just by living and working here in Second Life.

So there are differences, and I am glad to feel those differences, but living in a Virtual World constantly reminds me of the deconstruction and that I really should never try to reduce differences to simplistic oppositions.

So, in my view, Virtual Worlds are on a real fundamental level, very interesting places, to engage in a global conversation between cultures and nations.