testifies to the the absolutely incredible inability of our current society to make something of people's intelligence, skill, time, and desire to be useful: we have to ask ourselves what is going on when our society has to create a massive virtual repository for less professionally oriented intellectual work, give it none of the material benefits of the actual world of letters or make it subject to the same restraints or regulations, and then even have the gall to call it "self-publishing."
Spot on. In the recent past there has been a flurry of claims floating around the media about the "revolution" taking place on the internet (even appearing incongruously and repeatedly on such totally unrevolutionary channels as BBC World). Under certain conditions (primarily government crackdowns on other forms of communication and social gathering) things like Facebook and Twitter can become key instruments for social movements but that doesn't make them essentially revolutionary. It would be possible to argue that under normal conditions in a fairly liberal regime blogging, micro-blogging and all the social networking systems effectively divert energies into an arena where people can express themselves and let off steam (if necessary) without this having any impact on the central dynamic of the rest of society. The problem for social radicals is that nothing really changes - we remain bricks in the wall, in a sense, but each brick now has its own avatar and a page on FB. The broader problem, though, is that all those energies are going to waste. People are keen to express themselves, to read and form an opinion, speak out and get involved. It is a sad indictment of the current social order that those energies, interests and abilities are not able to become part of a richer, more democratic public life.
5 comments:
Interesting point! I had never thought of blogging as a way of distraction ever before!
Thanks for leaving the comment, Christina. But to be honest, I am not sure how to take it. Do I detect a touch of sarcasm there, or is that just my paranoia again?
No sarcasm at all! What I say is always straightforward! If I had had an objection, you would have known! :-)
Blogging can indeed be a 'sponge' that absorbs bloggers' energy, depriving them of any action that should normally follow. This is not always the case, but I have to admit, as in my previous comment, that you have a point!
Thanks, for putting my mind at rest, Christina. However, I think John's point wasn't so much the personal one about how efficiently each of us makes use of our personal energies. It was more social and political - a complaint about a society that doesn't provide the right sort of public space in which the kind of dialogue (in this case online) that people like you and John contribute to could be a part of a richer notion of democracy or civil society.
Then you are right once again! Despite all that, blogging has managed to affect society in a number of ways which we will analyze in another post and at a better time of day! Goodnight from Greece! :-)
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