New distributions of regional power in the Internet Age

August 2, 2022, late night/early morning.

 In light of the previous story about California's new status as a global gateway due to the Internet Age, I think it's important to put in a word about what this means for the distribution of actual political power in the United States. We hear a lot about East and West Coast, urban and rural, or even the old North-South regional balances of power in the United States, but I think the Internet has opened up a new regionalism in the balance of power. Looking at the new economy only, I think that the way it is structured is around two cities and their corresponding roles in the U.S. economy and society. Those two cities are Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. In a very basic, even reductionist, analysis, D.C. makes the laws, regulations, and policies, and Hollywood in L.A. performs them for the public. 

Again, the inability of New York to "hack it" in the Internet Age with their publishing and media industries plays into the tension associated with this analysis. But recent history shows that New York has been a marginal player on the national stage, even during the Trump presidency (Trump was from New York, and there were more "very important" books published during his term, but it didn't catch on very deeply in the culture, because, as good as a paper book is to read, something about the quality of the product for information and the slow pace of publication didn't compare to the Internet.). More of American youth than you might expect have given up on New York publishing to be arbiters of culture, and they definitely don't dictate trends as they once may have. New York would like to add its Broadway theater tradition to the national cultural mix. But the medium is not translating well. It's not clear whether New York will be able to make a mark on the national culture, in the Internet Age, unless it can figure out a good mix of paper and Internet publishing and media. The New York publishing industry's inability to hang on in the age of the Internet's speed and diversity is filtering down as a failure to the level of writers and authors, and causing a lot of resentment among the youth. It's not easy to make a living on writing anything these days - it's harder than ever before, and making a living on Internet publishing is nigh on impossible. But the New York publishing industry is hemorrhaging profits too. Ergo, resentment. 

It's not fair to say that Washington D.C. is taking the place of New York either, because they are fundamentally different in character, even in their perception by the people. D.C. will never become New York, and New York will never switch places with D.C., not even in representation to the public. The rise of the D.C.-to-L.A. power distribution paradigm is a new and unconnected thing to any New York-to-L.A. cultural moment that could have once existed. This new paradigm is coming to be hand-in-hand with new cultural problems, namely financial, aesthetic, and those concerning artistic expression. A more politically aware cinema comes hand in hand with concerns about freedom of expression, covert messaging from powerful politicians, and contentious arguments about public morality. The apolitical national culture that prevailed when New York was writing the stories for the national consciousness only glorified the traditional repressive systems; the army's latest conquest and the banks' latest exploitations for example. But a new, politically aware national culture comes along with new internal contentions, about the artistic process and freedom of expression. This is the age we're actually in, and the contemporary mindset we have no choice but to operate in: - at least until the publishing world can wake up to the new technological paradigm and make the Internet work for writers and readers. But even then we have to admit that the world has changed, and no measure of tradition will be able to free the very late New York publishing world from having to deal with a new, more open, and more politically aware world. At the bare minimum, when the New York publishers wake, they will have to contend with the nascent contentions about artists's freedom of expression that are sure to arise, and at that point we will see whether they can stake out a progressive and liberal position on freedom of expression after all.