Flash agents mediate cross-cultural contact at lightning speed and dictate relation.

Evidence

Today flash agents are the relay agents who are in tune with the irnplicit violence of contacts between cultures and the lightning speed of techniques of relation. They send consciousness hllrtling into the sudden certainty that it is in possession of the obvious keys of interaction or, usually, into the assurance that it does not need such keys. They dictate f~lsh­ ion and commonplace-these two modern embodiments of interrelation. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 842

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘flash agent’ as the relay agent transformed by speed, opposing two older mediating figures.
• QUESTION: Glissant contrasts flash agents with older relay agents who needed obscurity — is this another instance of the detour/ruse mechanism (latency, indirectness) being destroyed by immediacy?
• XREF: connects to: Intermediaries like guards, scribes, and servants lubricated elite-mass interaction — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 109; Electronic communication enduringly exposes once-ephemeral social exchange to scrutiny — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 842

Broader Connections

• Intermediaries like guards, scribes, and servants lubricated elite-mass interaction #expands (0.85) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 109
• Electronic communication enduringly exposes once-ephemeral social exchange to scrutiny #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 842