Ulmer’s Short list #1

Would you think of electracy as a paradigm shift? By Naila

Naila’s explanation 

Ulmer states, “Socrates is a syncretic figure, partly oral, partly literate, the first person to experience Self.” I am a firm believer in Kuhn’s concept of paradigm shifts. Do you think that electracy is just another shift in our history? Instead of Socrates’ self-realization with the use of orality and literacy, now, with the aftermath of COVID-19 and the change of world order in the same sense that Socrates changed the course of thought with the Socratic method. Does the COVID-19 pandemic mark the turning point in history for electracy? “The quarantine serves as a collective existential epiphany.” Is the pandemic another awakening in history where we evolve through electracy?

I think this is a significant question to understand electracy further. Sometimes I wonder the same “is electracy a significant change”?. Because let’s think about it. We are basically doing everything nowadays digitally from seeing doctors to dating. We are also building connections with each other based on our Instagram aesthetic and Instagram “self”.  Some days I wonder if we are losing touch with reality. I also wonder if electracy is affecting us positively or negatively. 

Another question that was drawn to me is  By Sandy “Is electracy an apparatus meant to challenge self-actualization and return society to a collective community form, similar to when orality was the main form of communication? 

This was a very helpful question to think about electracy and its future. For example, nowadays we are all on our own paths and building our life electronically and also in person. We are educating ourselves, building careers through online recourses, and getting information from sites with no human interactions. So my primary concern here is that “is electracy creating barriers between us humans? “ Are we all working toward self-actualization and not building genuine connections? When we become self-actualized, will we return to a collective community? 

Do you think that electracy is the way to future education? By Diana Rivera 

I think electracy is the future of our education system. During the literacy era, we obtained information from books, magazines, personal diaries and etc. Nowadays we are self-educating ourselves through particular academic sites. So I think electracy is the future of our education. We are also taking classes remotely and pursuing many degrees online. I have a question related to that “is it bettering us”? Or is it actually taking a lot of us and getting us to hook to rely on electronic support to function?