I am in the process of reading John Thackara's book In the Bubble
He writes
Throughout the modern age we have subordinated the interests of people to those of technology, an approach that has led to the unthinkable destruction of traditional cultures and the undermining of forms of life that we judges once, to be backward... we believed that the assembly line and standardization would make the world a better place, yet along with efficiency came a dehumanization of work.
Barbara Ehrenreich in Dancing in the Streets writes
The loss to ordinary people of so many recreations and festivities is simply incalcuable
She argues that festival is not made for the people but by the people, and that in fact we poured ourselves with great passion and energy into the planning of festivities - festivity she argues is a social good worth fighting for.
But what on earth has festivity got to do with Social Networking? or the world of We Media - simple if we pause to think about it.
The laws of the growth of digital communities and social networks are about self-organisation, grass roots and participation - where we derive personal and collective joy - in a variety of ways.
Yesterday I was at MoMo in New York to hear a panelist pronounce that Facebook had captured the "social networking space" with one or two others - As in job done. Christ, no wonder people are struggling to find models to monetise in this space.
This is what really gets me - such a frenzy around social networks yet few really seem to have taken the trouble to really understand what underpins all this activity?
People are social animals with an innate need to connect and collaborate - the mass media, and the mass society does not accommodate these principal needs. The logic and philosophy is different. Shoehorning a mass media approach into such a different ecology just wont work.
And yet again social networks will be monetised via advertising $$$ - well no.
Its a hybrid model - where successful markets are created out of knowledge and information exchange, commerce and entertainment and so it has always been thus.
The repression of festivity, or the notion of collective joy is a byproduct of a calvinistic approach to capitalism, we defer gratification for discipline. Which means - people are using the digital environment to get back to some of that good shit - doing stuff that makes them happy, makes them feel they are in control and and contributing to a process.
Thackara argues that understanding why things change - and reflecting on how they should change are not separate issues.
If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you
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Thackara argues that understanding why things change - and reflecting on how they should change are not separate issues....
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