Thoughts on Ideological Gardens
Over the past few months I’ve been forming something of a theory on mass hysteria and how the sudden rise of interconnectivity on a global scale has distorted opinions and led to many instances of closed thought and conclusions based on incomplete data sets.
One example that came to mind this afternoon was how it’s now possible to exist entirely inside of one ideology. Everything one reads can originate from a like ideology. This is more possible than ever because of the way information coagulates online. Blogs with similar beliefs link to one another, social networks and influence leaders create balkanized communities. These communities exist as thought-overlays across society, ignoring geographic boundaries.
Another byproduct is the ability to organize gatherings and protests on a scale unimaginable to those limited by a printing press or xerox machine. A few years ago flashmobs were regularly gathering hundreds of people at random locations with virtually no advance notice. Apply that same principle to any given political cause and you end up with demonstrations orders of magnitude larger than anything before. The organizers of those causes then believe their mission and themselves to be significantly more right than their predecessors. This builds on the first idea too, those same organizers existing wholly within their self-selected ideological gardens, seeing anything beyond their walls as a threat or evidence of their own self-righteousness.
What we’re most at risk of losing is the ability to understand and rationally challenge dissenting views.
Humanity as a whole wasn’t really ready for what the Internet and global connectivity has given us. But one of the great lessons of history is that humanity is never ready, we always get blind-sided by advances and then cobble together a future from the leftover shards of what once was.
“Humanity as a whole wasn’t really ready for what the Internet and global connectivity has given us. But one of the great lessons of history is that humanity is never ready, we always get blind-sided by advances and then cobble together a future from the leftover shards of what once was.”
That’s kind of the pattern for all of human progress, be it in a large historic event, or an individual’s ontogenetic one. We cannot become acclimated to situations we have no specific nor analogous experience for.
When we are children, we become good at being children. When we are teenagers, we become good at being teenagers. When we become adults, we become good at being adults. We just have to trust that we’ll have the wit to see where our experiences may help us.
The only difference between the progression of an individual and that of a society is the momentum we carry. An individual can change his course with relative ease before he’s caused himself too much trouble, but a society requires a great opposing force to see meaningful alteration. Unfortunately, this usually means big messes.
I’d venture to say that the internet has made social unrest easier to ignore. A paper petition with 10,000 signatures on it has a lot more meaning than an online petition with 1 million signatures.
Now everybody is a (universally ignored) blogging web activist. Why hit the streets in opposition to the Iraq war when you can have even MORE people decry it (universally ignored) from the comfort of your own living room?
But I see what you mean. The bloggers that don’t want to hear the opposite point of view can always moderate their comments (and they often do).
Neiman say hi. I saw him over new years when I was at the Rose Bowl game with the family.