{"id":8872,"date":"2025-03-13T17:53:29","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T17:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/?p=8872"},"modified":"2025-03-13T17:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T17:54:07","slug":"a-room-of-ones-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/2025\/03\/13\/a-room-of-ones-own\/","title":{"rendered":"a room of one’s own"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The below is a recent newsletter that I’d like to make public here.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

March 10, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This edition is not about politics. My thoughts on the last week are in today\u2019s post by Paul Krugman<\/a> and on my public Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, I want to briefly ask a few questions about how we make meaning and, in the spirit of Edwardian literature, how we might connect<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExercise for their faculties\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While our oldest and his classmates celebrated his 13th birthday by turning into a giggling ball of trivia and video games, I retreated to our bedroom and jotted down this visual joke:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"joke<\/a>
slightly less than 500\u00a3 a year<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Earlier in the evening, I\u2019d given a friend a brief demonstration and, upon taking it off, she exclaimed: \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re really somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d replied that it\u2019s like having a private theater, because that\u2019s what I\u2019m focused on for work, but its potential<\/em> is greater as a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a portable, personal space<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When we read, we create a space between the writer and the reader (often, the same person!)1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of that metaphysical space emerged most if not all of the greatest achievements of humanity. (e.g., liberal democracy)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without such spaces there is no reflection, and without reflection there is no accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The person who does not read<\/a>, and does not work to make such a space, may live in their regrets but they do not understand their responsibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading takes us out of our natural tendency to lapse into self-absorption.2<\/a><\/sup> Where there was one, there are now two: subject and reflection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s true for me is not necessarily true for you. But until it is written and legible (intelligible) it is not even true for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It only becomes true for me when it becomes external and thus necessarily social.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

is reading a solitary or a social experience?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this have to do with a machine that creates a portable, personal space?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"diagram<\/a>
\u201cits room, our moment of attention\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In an ideal world, we would gather and talk often. Perhaps, in drawing rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“room appropriated for the reception of company,” 1640s, short for withdrawing room<\/em> (16c.; see withdraw<\/strong><\/a>), into which ladies would retire after dinner. Earlier in the sense of “private room” as draw-chamber<\/em> (mid-15c.); drawyng chaumber<\/em> (early 15c.).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the real world, we watch conversations<\/a> that take place on sets made to look like living rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These podcasts \u2014so named because of the physical \/ virtual platform through which they became possible \u2014 now shape<\/a>how we imagine the public and private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet as diverse as these exchanges may be, they are all driven by a single logic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than living in an age where there is a profusion of conversation, we are in fact in an age of exponentially increasing conformism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is but one<\/em> constant conversation happening all around us, and one that is largely unintelligible to us despite having more impact on our lives than just about any other law or ideology:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advertising.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Advertising logics rule everything around us and they are designed to be deaf to the content of our characters. Computers talking to computers to decide what we will see, hear, feel for the sake of advertising efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are far beyond amusing ourselves to death. We are actively scrolling ourselves off a cliff of unmeaning<\/strong>.4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the public sphere is now dominated by pseudo<\/em>-social networks how to shield oneself then from surveillance capitalism?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"still<\/a>
Closed for business.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The day after our son\u2019s birthday party, I watched the movie \u201cZ\u201d by Costa Gavras<\/a>, which begins with an urgent search for a theater; a safe space to gather in community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an effort to shut down public debate of a future that is not organized around war, the state has closed all the city\u2019s public forums to a group of pacifists who have invited a doctor from abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simultaneously, the state, thought a corrupted justice system, has also filled the streets with thugs who will viciously beat anyone who advocates for non-violence or against state-sponsored violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, that was then, right?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"diagram<\/a>
Apple\u2019s SharePlay Protocol<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What good then is a portable room in an age of civic disintegration?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer may depend on how we answer another question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we need more opportunities for reflection?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

And to that I would add a few more:<\/p>\n\n\n\n