July 11, 2006
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How Does Blogging Affect Modern Society - A Socrates Cafe topic
Socrates cafe has two topics this week. everyone seems to have strong opinions on the subject of dangerous philosophies, so I'll give this one a shot.
Blogging is the modern manifestation of what Marshall McLuhan was talking about forty or so years ago when he spoke of the "Global Village" and the idea that the "Medium is the message".
It has brought the world community much closer together - I suppose you could say it has created a world community. Even this small Xanga blogring has members from around the world -who can communicate more-or-less instantly.Of course our open society and the concept of internet freedom (Except for China, of course) allows every viewpoint, however peculiar, it's day in the sun and lots of kooks have developed a following through the internet but it also allows ready refutation. I think the blogs sort of balance each other out.
From the point of view of the individual, blogging has been heaven sent. It widens your world, itroduces you to people you would otherwise never have met or known, exposes you to differing viewpoints - which has the effect of either strengthening or allowing you to modify your own viewpoint.
Blogging allows the physically restrained (Me, for example. As a full-time caregiver, I don't get out much) a much wider world. It is also, when you think about it, one of the Safest forms of communication; it allows the shy and reticent to become "party animals" - they can even (try) to remake their image to the rest of the world.
To sum up: Blogging is Good.
Comments (12)
Wow. Something I agree with you about almost 100%.
Two things:
1. "I think the blogs sort of balance each other out." I'm a big fan of balance - if it's true balance and not the appearance of. I often hear/see/read that balance is achieved by two diametrically opposed ideas, movements etc. reaching an equal resistance bringing about a halt in percieved tensions - the "Cold War" or a cease fire can appear balanced but it was more like two tactonic plates a few years from an earthquake. It isn't until someone leads the way by leadership in the right direction that others can rally around that things ever REALLY get solved. I prefer a "cold war" and a cease fire to armed conflict of course, but, I don't think a lot of people understand what true balance is when talking about ideas. My own political philosophy, which you would call 'conservative', was not arrived at so I can balance so-called 'liberals'. Like Aristotle, I believe in the hedghog principle. There is only truly one correct way that moves forward by synthesizing competeing good ideas, not bad ones mixed with good ones. I just wanted to make that clear.
2. "To sum up: Blogging is Good." Not inherently. Depends on what one is blogging about. A blog formed to promote NAMBLA is bad. The awareness of such a blog for those who oppose NAMBLA is good but not the blogging itself.
Everything else you said I agree with.
Linking you now.
How large of an impact do you think blogging has?
I agree in something you said and disagree with something else. I will obviously tell you only what i disagree of
.
Uhm... "disagree of" /"on"/ "upon"/"about"/"with"?!?!? damn English language!
Ok. First i think that you are right, the internet (blogs or chats or whatever other form), since you don't show really yourself but you show the image of what you would like to be in the best way you can express it with a post, one's virtual self is very different from him/her real self. So, as you say, it can be that "global village", but it is only the global village of fake people. Blogging is good and fun, and it can help to exchange opinions as we are trying to do on SC, but human relations are made on more than this. They are made on facial expression, on the sound of the voice, on smells and tastes, which do not pass through my dial-up 56k modem (does this kind of things pass through a more potent ADSL connection?
)
Secondly, apart from China, of course, i believe that less than 20 percent of human beings have the possibility to access the Internet, and among them i believe that less than a half is really wanting to communicate with somebody else, and of the remaining i think there is still a problem of language, infact, while i can communicate with you in an English blogring, you cannot do the same with me in an Italian one. Summarizing all, 10 percent of human beings participate to that global village, but most of them cannot communicate each other. Not a good thing for a global village...
Third, spending time on the internet can steal time from being a real "party animal" or atleast having real phisical relationship with somebody else. Being here busy writing this blog, i cannot be in my favourite brewery chatting of the same subject with my friends.
To sum up: Blogging is Good, but, pals, hang out with friends that's much better!
Dear Dick,
I wrote that someday we will all have our own television stations on the web. Nowadays, with sites like YouTube, where I post all my internet videos and video blogs, this is becoming more and more of a reality. The medium is fast becoming the message. What I find interesting is that there seems to be more "hoopla" concerning blogs than there was about personal websites back in the 90s. This is probably due to the fact that one has to have at least a cursory knowledge of HTML coding in order to "construct" a webpage (remember the early websites before the advent of the "www" and the pictorial browser?) but the blogging programs make it far easier to "get started."
Do you think that people should be granted a "blog" or "website" by society? Now most people have to "stumble" across the fact that blogs exist, have to sign up for a service, and usually have to pay. The "community" of bloggers seems immense, but there are still a lot of people in the world without internet access. Do you think that people should be "entitled" to internet access and blogs, or is the system fine as it is?
I thnk that someone's "web space" should be online in perpetuity, as a legacy.
Michael F.Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool
To Creed: I'm glad we agree on at least some of the impact of the internet and blogs - I think the net is basically good because it allows for a more comprehensive exchange of ideas. Whenever you come in contact with a new idea it can't help but modify your existing values, either to strengthen them or to start you thinking about modifying them - Both. IMHO a very good thing.
Hi Dario: You're completely right about the language barrier. I'm afraid with typical human thoughtfulness, we have chosen the worst possible language as the international norm - English.
Several years ago I was in China and i visited several elementary schools. They were teaching ALL six-year-olds a strange sort of English. I predict within a generation most English speakers will do so with a Chinese accent.
Mike: Do you mean assign everyone a web address at birth, sort of like a social security number? More Bureauacy!
On the other hand., it would be a neat idea - to be able to communicate with everyone in the country/world
Youtube is a sketch,isn't it?
In response to our host's serious question: Watch the coming political landscape - The importance of blogging will show up there first - as a matter of fact, it already has.
It is great that blogging opens the world and equalise the playing fieldfor many people. The width and breath of how much we can interact on blogs are limited by time and availability. Do you see it playing a role in how blogging will impact on society?
There is no doubt that blogging is a time consumer. I think the trick is to "measure the pleasure" and not let the internet run your life. On the other hand, it opens unimanagined vistas. I see blogging as the individualizing of the internet with the attendant problems of crowding and confusion. Broadband has solved some of this and I'm sure access will speed up in the future - as will inevitable government regulation.
Probably the most important social implication currently is the developing sophistication of bloggers. More people have more relativly shallow knowlege of more subjects than ever before, but with the opportunity to increase their understanding - that is as long as they don't belive everything they read on Wikipedia
I am finding myself very much in agreement with Dario. In fact, I wish I had beat him here so that I could have said it first.
I will carry it a step further and say that blogging, chatting, and internet communication of all kinds can be very dangerous. You do not actually know that I am a grandmother named Nancy who lives in Minnesota, although I make a very good case for that on my blog. You also do not really know that Socrates Cafe was started by someone who used the nom de plume Simone_de_Beauvoir, and that that person has apparently abdicated. I tell you that that is the case, but you do not know. Whether or not those things are true, they do not hurt you in any way.
There are people who misrepresent themselves on the internet for the express purpose of hurting others. That can be very dangerous. In those cases, internet communication, including blogging, can cause great harm.
Living on the internet can also, as Dario says, separate you from the real people in your life. I have let that happen to me, and I know, very sadly, that it is possible. Even when people are trying to be straightforward, their presentation on the internet is different from their presentation in person, so it is best not to let your primary relationships occur online. Trust me on that one. I now guard against letting that happen.
On the other hand, you can meet many very fascinating people on the internet, and they can bring richness and joy to your life. I have met many people from many countries that I never would have encountered in any other way. That has been a great experience. For someone like you, who has limited ability to get out and be with people, the internet can be a Godsend.
What cautions would you give others about blogging?
Nancy, who, I believe, teaches some of her courses using the internet, mentions the dark side of blogging.
There are dangers here as well as everywhere else, but on the whole, i think blogging is safer than just about any other way of interacting and meeting new people. You do, after all, control the power switch on your computer.
Is the internet inherently dishonest? Probably - depends on how you define honesty. each of us reveals only as much of ourselves as we wish to - at least to start. As we get deeper into an online relationship, we probably end up projecting a lot of our essential self; but meeting in person may be a shock.
I have been an internet friend of a Xangan living in silicon Vally for many years and have followed her through several relationships. Last year she was much attracted to a blogger from NV who was likewise attracted to her. they met, had a fun weekend but she quickly discovered he wasn't for her and just as quickly dropped him. He still mutters bitterly about her on his site. Was their meeting dangerous? It potentially could have been as it pointed up how the on-line person may differ from the real one - but isn't that true of any beginning relationship?
I think your personality will eventually out itself, whatever medium of communication is used.
Personally, I prefer face-to-face for all the reasons Dario mentions but this medium is certainly better than the one-way relationships which were only recourse of the isolated before the internet.
RYC: Thanks for the explaination. I thought there was more than one take on this topic.
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