Untitled - socium.ge

Informationalism and the network society 39and individuals who refuse to fade away in the logic of dominant networks. Tobe French becomes, again, as relevant as to be a citizen. To be Catalan, orIrish, or Basque, or Quebecois, or Kurd, or Tibetan, or Aymara, becomes arallying point of self-identification vis-à-vis the domination of imposednation-states. In contrast to the ideologies of the end of history, which proposethe merger of all cultures in the cosmopolitan melting pot of the citizens of theworld, resistance identities have exploded in the early stages of the developmentof the global network society, and have produced the most dramaticsocial and political conflicts in recent times.Respectable theorists and less respectable ideologists may warn of thedangers of such a development. But we cannot ignore it. Observation mustinform theory, not the other way around. Thus, what characterizes the globalnetwork society is the contraposition of the logic of the global Net and theaffirmation of a multiplicity of local selves, as I tried to argue and documentin my trilogy on the information age (Castells, 2000a, c, 2004). Rather than therise of a homogeneous global culture, what we observe as the main commontrend is historical cultural diversity: fragmentation rather than convergence.The key question that then arises is whether these specific cultural identities(made with the materials inherited from singular histories and reworked in thenew context) have the capacity to communicate with each other (Touraine,1997). Otherwise, the sharing of a social structure, while not being able tospeak a common language of values and beliefs, leads to systemic misunderstanding,at the roots of destructive violence against the other. Thus, protocolsof communication between different cultures are the cornerstone of thenetwork society, as, without them, there is no society, just dominant networksand resisting communes.The Habermasian–Beckian project of a cosmopolitan culture to create aconstitution for the citizens of the world, laying the foundations for democraticglobal governance, identifies correctly the central cultural-institutionalissue of the network society (Habermas, 1998; Beck, 2003). Unfortunately,this vision proposes the solution without being able to identify the process bywhich these protocols of communication could be created, given the fact thatthe cosmopolitan culture, according to empirical research, is present only in avery small part of the population, including in Europe (Norris, 2000). There is,indeed, no real European identity in the minds of most Europeans.To determine, even hypothetically, what these protocols of communicationare, or could be, requires an empirical analysis that, although possible, exceedsthe limits of this theoretical text. But, in terms of the theory, this is my proposition:the culture of the global network society is a culture of protocols ofcommunication enabling communication between different cultures on thebasis, not necessarily of shared values, but of sharing the value of communication.This is to say: the new culture is not made of content but of process. It