Christopher Locke replies! (and I respond below):
Dear Micah,
What a cordial note after my taking you so dreadfully to task. Thank you. You know, I figured it was a copy editor looking out the window at some passing lass. Or laddie. But I leaned on the point because Cluetrain was always careful not to lend itself to political issues, or religious, or pick-yer-elipsis. And believe me, we were asked by every stripe of ideology and idolatry for endorsement of each's particular pet thing. We all felt that such alliances would weaken our core argument. Which, as some Amazon reviewers helpfully pointed out, we repeated about 6,000 times. So much time has passed since then, I forget now precisely what it was.
Anyway: Ich bin unpolitisch. Sort of. If pressed, I guess I'd say I'm more for casting Molotov cocktails than votes -- but only because it's a halfway decent line and I take my poetic license seriously. (Perhaps because getting my learner's permit was such a bitch.)
I feel worst about my slur on your use of "paradigm shift." A low blow, I admit. However, where I come from, that's an actionable offense. And I don't mean "actionable" the way CEOs say that. "We need an actionable business plan." Looks like ever since Enron, they've been getting their wish.
But dude, even T.S. Kuhn stopped saying "paradigm shift" -- and he invented the phrase. Sorry, but you owe me 50 bucks. Lucky for you it's a first infraction. Far as I know...
More seriously, I think it worth pushing back on the Negropontean notion that being "wired" makes us some sort of privileged elite. Well... actually, it makes too many of us suspect we are just that; and that's the problem. Having cable or DSL or whatever fat bandwidth and however killer Javascript skilz, makes us no different from 10,000 pornographers and Gooogle only knows how many Aryan Nation sites. I know I'll be reviled for saying this, yea verily, but I dunno... I think I'd rather take my chances with a barroom full of Aryan Brothers than with a standards-committee style of governance enforced by The Dotters of the American Slash. (I'm keeping this in secret code to cut down on the flame mail.)
So now we are *all* online, or soon will be, and the only solution I can see is the unthinkable. We are going to have to talk, not just among ourselves, but to each other.
Politics, if I may offer an observation, and if the past lends any clue, is the art of doing everything *but* that.
Worse (in an ongoing series of unfortunate realities), before we can talk, we're going to need something to say. And somehow, affirming our hardcore digitalness doesn't strike me as the optimal opener. "Hello," on the other hand, might be a good start.
I make these remarks, which I hope you will post along with your friendly letter, in an equally friendly spirit of universal surrealism. That is to say: this --> | <-- is not a pipe.
very best
chris
Dear Chris--
I think we're probably closer in spirit than perhaps first appeared to you, on reading that one article. I have two views of politics. One, that it:
encompasses everything that we can and must do together. It includes how we educate our children, design our communities and neighborhoods, feed ourselves and dispose of our wastes, how we care for the sick and elderly and the poor, how we relate to the natural world, how we entertain and enlighten ourselves, how we defend ourselves and what values we seek to defend, what roles are chosen for us by virtue of our identity and what roles we create for ourselves. Politics also means being able to ask--as a community, not just as isolated individuals--fundamental questions about where we're going as a country, what the future should be for the generations that follow. We need to be able to ask those questions and deliberate those solutions, loud and long.
(That's me, unmodestly quoting myself, from the last paragraph of my book on third parties in America.)
My second view of politics is that it is broken, perhaps irreparably, though I haven't given up on the chances of fixing it. I'm not sure I'm for casting Molotov cocktails, though I am for figuratively blowing up the existing power structure (Big Government, Bigfoot Media, Big Corporations, etc). A long time ago, I wrote a piece calling for a binding "None of the Above" option on all ballots, and I still believe that would be a good idea. I spend a good deal of my day exposing the corruption and inequity of big money in politics, and I do see some modest progress being made in freeing elected officials from their direct dependence on wealthy special interest donors.
I agree with you that there's nothing inherently progressive about "being digital" (and boy do I remember reading Negroponte and most of the other early Wired writers and thinking what pompous asses they were--a new self-styled elite if there ever was one). Is there anything inherently progressive about having a telephone? It's what we do with the web that matters, not the cool tools or toys in and of themselves.
It may be that all the new capacities we're discovering--the ability of anyone with a compelling message to reach hundreds, thousands, even millions of likeminded souls, at a speed far greater and cost far lower than anytime before--will ripen and clash in such a fashion that nothing new is produced save more "necessary cacophony and confusion [allowing] deep-pocketed oligarchs to run things out of view," in your felicitous phrase.
That may be. To which I say, first, when was it otherwise? I doubt you're going to tell me you think things were better before the web came along. And second, I think the Net-impact on politics isn't even at the toddler stage of development yet. Here in the US, we've gone through just one election cycle where a critical mass of engaged, self-directed citizens got a taste or two of their nascent power. Yes, people are going to have to talk with each other (and not just amongst themselves) and figure out how to have a conversation about all those things I listed as politics. But, in fits and starts, that's what the idea of democracy has been from the beginning.
So, despite the fact that it's going to cost me another $50, I'm going to stand by my use of the phrase "paradigm shift." A bottom-line fundamental rule of American politics (at least) since the popularization of broadcast media is no longer operative. You don't need to be a Big Politician, Bigfoot Journalist, Big Corporation or just plain Big Rich Guy to reach a salient number of your fellow citizens anymore--you can also be someone with a compelling message who connects with other likeminded (or not) folks who are networked in the greatest word-of-mouth machine yet to be built.
No, the old habits of deferring to vested authorities, worshipping at the cult of media celebrity and imagining that self-expression (as opposed to community organizing) equals real power haven't died. Yet. It probably will take a generation before they do, and those of us in the driver's seat now grew up under the old assumptions and think it will ever be thus. I could be wrong, but I think the young will surprise us, and maybe even delight us. God knows we've done enough to disappoint them.
Posted by msifry at January 21, 2005 10:12 AM