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January 27, 2004
Neighborhood News
Posted by Arnold
Brother Clay has a worth-reading take on Dean, politics, and blogs. Here's an excerpt:
We know well from past attempts to use social software to organize groups for political change that it is hard, very hard, because participation in online communities often provides a sense of satisfaction that actually dampens a willingness to interact with the real world. When you’re communing with like-minded souls, you feel like you’re accomplishing something by arguing out the smallest details of your perfect future world, while the imperfect and actual world takes no notice, as is its custom.
I'm gonna disagree with this. I think that the problem of living in an echo chamber is not so much a characteristic of Internet groups as it is a characteristic of the far left. There are folks on the left who just don't want to rub their views against the sandpaper of alternative viewpoints (other than straw men), and they are always shocked to read the election returns.
On a topic that is contentious for different reasons, welcome Brother Nick on the topic of sports and technology. My views on the topic can be summarized quite easily:
1. Baseball should prevent all new technology (and even roll back some existing technology), using whatever draconian authoritarian means necessary.
2. Other sports don't matter.
Nick probably will offer a more nuanced view.
Comments (3)
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1. Foolish Jordan on January 28, 2004 09:05 AM writes...
I wonder about your characterization of the far left here. "Birds of a feather flock together" as they say. Are far right groups, for example, super-tolerant of differing views in a way that far left groups aren't? I've never heard of such a thing before. Can you provide more details?
Permalink to Comment2. John Thacker on January 28, 2004 10:01 AM writes...
"I've never heard of such a thing before. Can you provide more details?"
Well, I suppose you've heard the story about New York Times film critic Pauline Kael, who was astonished in 1972 when Richard Nixon won the Presidency (in a massive, 49 state, huge popular vote landslide), since nobody she knew voted for him.
Most people are at least exposed to either popular or high culture in the their dailies; but the vast majority of cultural celebrities of either stripe seem to be on the Left. (If one listens only to country music, and one's sport of choice is NASCAR, then the situation would be different, of course.)
It's certainly possible for rightist groups to be in an echo chamber, and definitely happens to parochial, insular groups. That's to be expected, though. What's interesting is that it's possible to be putatively cosmopolitan and be on the Left, yet live in an echo chamber as far as diversity of political views are concerned.
Permalink to Comment3. Todd Suomela on January 30, 2004 12:33 PM writes...
I think one should draw a distinction between saying that cultural celebrities are in an echo chamber and a particular political group is in an echo chamber. One example of a film critic being surprised by Nixon's victory does not a whole argument make.
I agree that there is a correlation between cultural celebrity and the left, but the implication that the Left is more insulated because some of its members are cultural celebrities seems a significant logical stretch.
Isolation has a lot of causes: political , cultural, and economic. The correlations between them tend to be weak; counterexamples come quickly to mind from both sides of the political spectrum. Saying one group is more or less prone to being caught in an echo chamber seems counterproductive to constructive dialogue.
The argument about the Left living in an echo chamber seems to approach the Type M arguments Mr. Kling has argued so eloquently against. Saying someone doesn't want to rub their nose in reality seems to impugn motives more than consequences.
Thanks for the provocative views. I'll continue to return to rub against the sandpaper of alternative views. Some of us really do find it helpful, sometimes even enjoyable.
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