I thought I'd blog now about what I think is the reading for next week.
I found John Law's (nice name, buddy!) analogy of Marx to Hughes (& by implication, Edison) a little egregious - it's like confusing Mother Teresa with Mussolini. There may be something to it, I'm not really sure whether it carries through: Marx was referring to the fact that no ideology can counteract the economic bases of society while Hughes was referring to Edison's genius for thinking of people (and everything else he came in contact with) as commodities, or, rather, as part of a system. Inasmuch as both are referring to the same process - I guess that is OK.
The difficulty sociologists find in drawing moral distinctions between Edison & Marx is something I find very curious. Why is Law so confounded when he discovers that he's facilitating the creation of nuclear-bombers? He was the one who embarked on the project - why did he do that in the first place? He seems astonished to discover that systems' analyses don't have to reinforce dominant ideology. I don't agree with him that functionalism is the problem - the 'fractionality' which he believes redeems system analysis is merely a way of making descriptions more complex, which while offering the possibility of greater accuracy does not imply a moral obligation to the 'good'.
I am further baffled by his reification of Donna Haraway as "[t]he best-known attempt to work within a relationality of semiotics in a mode that is [sic.] refuses functionalism..." (7) This might have been the case if he'd been referring to sociology (with which I am not overly familiar), but semiotics? What about Foucault (whom he references earlier on), Derrida, Deleuze & Guatari, Lyotard? Isn't there fifty years and more of thought based on the idea that semiotic systems are relational and defy the subject-predicate logics of classic western thought?
That's just a jab at his factual correctness (which you can still aspire to, even if everything solid is melting into thin air). More importantly I think his confusion arises out of the problems of his discipline. I was reminded of John Ralston Saul's lack of enthusiasm:

Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of sociology, had already laid out the ideal structures of corporatism in which the state and the [elite, powerful] interest groups would be as one. "The corporations' rule secures for the state the deferential citizenry...and so frees it to govern on the basis of 'morality itself...not the deformation it undergoes in being incarnated in current practices which can express it only imperfectly' because they are 'reduced to the level of "human mediocrity".'" "Current practices" and "human mediocrity" are references to democracy. (Saul, The unconscious civilisation)

If the bloke who designed your methodology had that in mind, you're probably in trouble from the get go. Durkheim's agenda, however, doesn't have to taint system analysis. As I said above - the methodology doesn't produce moral obligation. This is taken up in greater depth by Saul in another book: "Voltaire's bastards", which, sadly, is not presently available to me to quote. The gist is that reason, a splendid move out of the ignorance and superstition of the dark ages has since been perverted. One of the deepest perversions is the enduring notion that reason is inherently 'good'. Reason is simply an intellectual tool for working things out - you can reason out a means to eradicating polio & you can also reason out a more efficient nuclear-bomber.
The 'multiplicity' and 'fractionality' that Law is so enamoured of while methodologically useful puts him dangerously close to doing away with a moral project altogether, whilst searching for it in the minutiae.
This neatly dovetails with Law's other paper, about inventing our intellectual frameworks, although, again, not in a way I think he understands. Law seems obsessed with complexity (not to mention neologisms) where I would stress consistency of message and clarity. I don't think the nature of poverty or economic exploitation has changed that much, for hundreds of years. When Marx referred to 'everything solid melting into air' he was talking about everything which was irrelevant in the face of these things: This serves to make Law's project look foolishly ironic. Law is certainly correct when he says that business has a sound working-knowledge of systems-theory that exceeds that of the sociologists. Business, at least in the field, doesn't sit around endlessly redefining its terms - it gets on with the job.

Werd up to the unreconstructed Marxists - y'all.

I've been reading this excellent collected edition of a cartoon:
'The Boondocks' called 'The right to be hostile' An ultra-left & surprisingly successful, syndicated comic-strip, starring a young black kid called Huey (after Huey P. Newton - founder of the Black Panthers btw). Influenced by the legendary Doonesbury, which I always liked, but this has substantially more political bite.
Just thought I'd mention it.

That article by John Banks was interesting. I think the bit I wrote previously on SW:G gels with that interestingly.
The best known example of gamer-mod.s is the originally unlicensed adaptation of Half-Life: Counter strike.
Those guys got to have their own company & got quite rich - while still maintaining a very online-community friendly approach (follow the above link to download the game for free). I want to say something really negative about the gaming industry - but I think, for once, I can't find it in myself - sure there's lots of crap that goes on (I notice Mr. Banks doesn't mention anything about the big stoush between Auran & Activision when Activision yanked the rights to
Dark Reign II), sure the industry is really cut-throat (most game companies go up against the wall within 5 years), but gamer co-creation is actually alright: Everyone wants to be part of beta-testing, have their wish-list-for-features-in-the-sequel-to-their-favourite-game read & occasionally rip-off the source-code for Half-Life 2 - good for them.