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Scattered political thoughts
Feb. 7th, 2012 11:43 am"The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed" - from William Gibson's twitter
I think the Internet should change politics. Not just how existing politics are done, but the nature of the politics we have. We didn't have a decentralized, densely interconnected mass culture before now. Maybe we're trying to shoehorn old ideas into a new society. Maybe there are ways to defang oppressive power structures that address both libertarian and socialist concerns, and maybe they're byproducts of a platform that's based on people networking.
People can't be isolated, misinformed without recourse, or told "that's never been done" when it has. That's big. That has people scared about 'low quality information', when they mean 'information that we/those we trust can't control'. Books denounce Wikipedia, while Wikipedia has their own backlash in the form of deletionism and heavy-handed editorial policies; meanwhile, blogs and informal networks make sure the signal gets out. Sure, we're in a young, awkward phase, and the playground tribalism can get out of hand. But I'll take all the tribalism in the world if it defrocks the informational priesthood. And I'm wary of my inner Apollo saying "you can't play around, everything you do has to make perfect sense right this instant".
Right now, I trust open access academic journals more than I do JSTOR. I trust fansubs over licensing. I trust the web as my first source of health advice. I trust bloggers over print journalists, and I trust people speaking truth to power on Tumblr. I like the extent to which the web has made life "do it yourself". And I'm interested in the extent to which it can make life "do it ourselves", which I think we haven't totally learned yet, because we're still getting used to the ways in which these communities are formed and how they interact with each other and with their own physical counterparts.
Maybe we should have an American Network Party. Not American in the sense of "America first", but in the sense of "this is a localized part of something greater, insofar as we need to be represented as citizens of a particular country".
I like some of what Anonymous is doing. I think the next step will be not being anonymous, and presenting ourselves as visible groups, but without the old fashioned 'power to the people' rhetoric of OWS. I am the 99%, but I'm also the 1% of the 99%, and that is actually more important to me. More physical communities and support networks should form out of online political factions and identity groups. Maybe even a return to the commune in some form (though I don't know if I'd personally be up for it).
That said, progressive movements could do a better job of getting information out to people who aren't looking. Bringing politics into places where "politics shouldn't go" may be one tactic; fr'ex, it's kind of nice that so many bloggers don't think of their political views and their fandoms as discrete entities.
On a tangent: I think the game of capitalism could be played differently. Too much space is privatized today, but that could be leveraged in society's favor again: perhaps progressive, Green and socialist groups could pool resources, purchase storefronts and plots of land, and set their own 'private property' rules, but make those rules people-friendly. In that way, there'd always be somewhere nice to walk, somewhere to hang around even if you don't have money, and somewhere to camp out if you need to. Shopping centers aren't such bad things, but I really want a commons.
I think the Internet should change politics. Not just how existing politics are done, but the nature of the politics we have. We didn't have a decentralized, densely interconnected mass culture before now. Maybe we're trying to shoehorn old ideas into a new society. Maybe there are ways to defang oppressive power structures that address both libertarian and socialist concerns, and maybe they're byproducts of a platform that's based on people networking.
People can't be isolated, misinformed without recourse, or told "that's never been done" when it has. That's big. That has people scared about 'low quality information', when they mean 'information that we/those we trust can't control'. Books denounce Wikipedia, while Wikipedia has their own backlash in the form of deletionism and heavy-handed editorial policies; meanwhile, blogs and informal networks make sure the signal gets out. Sure, we're in a young, awkward phase, and the playground tribalism can get out of hand. But I'll take all the tribalism in the world if it defrocks the informational priesthood. And I'm wary of my inner Apollo saying "you can't play around, everything you do has to make perfect sense right this instant".
Right now, I trust open access academic journals more than I do JSTOR. I trust fansubs over licensing. I trust the web as my first source of health advice. I trust bloggers over print journalists, and I trust people speaking truth to power on Tumblr. I like the extent to which the web has made life "do it yourself". And I'm interested in the extent to which it can make life "do it ourselves", which I think we haven't totally learned yet, because we're still getting used to the ways in which these communities are formed and how they interact with each other and with their own physical counterparts.
Maybe we should have an American Network Party. Not American in the sense of "America first", but in the sense of "this is a localized part of something greater, insofar as we need to be represented as citizens of a particular country".
I like some of what Anonymous is doing. I think the next step will be not being anonymous, and presenting ourselves as visible groups, but without the old fashioned 'power to the people' rhetoric of OWS. I am the 99%, but I'm also the 1% of the 99%, and that is actually more important to me. More physical communities and support networks should form out of online political factions and identity groups. Maybe even a return to the commune in some form (though I don't know if I'd personally be up for it).
That said, progressive movements could do a better job of getting information out to people who aren't looking. Bringing politics into places where "politics shouldn't go" may be one tactic; fr'ex, it's kind of nice that so many bloggers don't think of their political views and their fandoms as discrete entities.
On a tangent: I think the game of capitalism could be played differently. Too much space is privatized today, but that could be leveraged in society's favor again: perhaps progressive, Green and socialist groups could pool resources, purchase storefronts and plots of land, and set their own 'private property' rules, but make those rules people-friendly. In that way, there'd always be somewhere nice to walk, somewhere to hang around even if you don't have money, and somewhere to camp out if you need to. Shopping centers aren't such bad things, but I really want a commons.
