Shirky, AKMA and Scaling Care

I was going to respond to Clay Shirky‘s welcome article on communities and audiences. He’s one of my favorite thinker guys. But another of my favorite thinker guys, AKMA, beat me to it. And AKMA’s piece is just superb.

I’ve long been suspicious of the term “community” when applied to the Internet, for in the real world, a community is a group of people who know one another and care about one another (not, as Clay says, “groups whose members actively communicate with one another” — there’s not enough juice in that phrase). The Internet is letting us form groups of members who know one another in some sense and care about one another in some sense, but we don’t yet know which senses. The fact that “lurking” has a positive sense on the Net is new. Even the intermittency of Net groups is new. So, the tokens by which a RW community constitutes itself — the howdies on the street, the pot roast dinners supplied when a member is in mourning — aren’t the same as on the Web. Thus, the limits to scaling aren’t yet known. Online groups whose members care about one another are neither communities nor audiences. We don’t yet know what they are. We thus don’t yet know how they’ll scale. And, the single most exciting aspect of the Web is, for me, that it’s letting us find out what human caring is possible of when the constraints of space, time and — most important — remembering people’s names are removed.

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Who’s an anti-semite?

Several people have taken exception to parts of my list of beliefs that do not make you an anti-semite. For example, Chip writes:

I do have to take some exception to the third: “thinks that Jews aren’t going to heaven because they don’t accept Jesus as their savior”

My reasoning is that someone who is so presumptious to think that another’s particular variety of the Supreme presupposes their ultimate eternal disposition is at the core a religious elitist. What if the Supreme’s definitive criteria for the successful transition into the next life is based on this one (novel concept: experience begets experience), that is, on our ability to love one another and get along?…

I’ll admit that it’s no fun to be regarded by someone — or by an entire denomination — as believing in an incomplete religion that dooms me to a life of eternal damnation. But “anti-Semite” is a strong word that has a political effect when uttered. The point of my piece was that we should reserve it for the real enemies of Jews. A Christian who believes I am damned may well still support my right to hold my false beliefs, support my right to equal consideration under the law, and may even personally like me. I need a way to differentiate that person from the one who thinks I’m responsible for AIDS, 9/11, world poverty and the early death of his Messiah.

I’m not trying let off the hook those who say that only believers in Jesus get into heaven. On the contrary, I want to engage people in dialogue about beliefs such as these. But once you call someone an anti-semite, you’ve poisoned the well and conversation becomes much much harder, if not impossible — and likewise for conversations about race, gender, sexual preference, etc. etc. etc.

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Danish Commas

From a mailing list comes a link to an article in Newsday that rips the lid off
a new European war that somehow has escaped
mainstream notice. It seems that the Danes are
feuding with themselves about the use and abuse of
commas:

The Conservatives prefer a return
to the system used from the 19th century until the
Second World War, when Danish was written according
to German rules of punctuation, which required
frequent commas, even in places where there seemed
to be no natural pause. A sentence would be
punctuated as follows: The man, I love, is a
dentist. The post-war atmosphere brought a distaste
for all things German, and in the emancipated 1960s
there arose an alternative method, with no rules, in
which commas were inserted to indicate pauses of
breath that occur in the natural rhythm of speech.

…In the general interest of progress, the
Culture Ministry recommended the New Comma as a
compromise, applying some grammatical rules to the
essentially physiological system that recorded
breaths. But in the years since, the comma debate
has only grown fiercer. Anarchistic writers and
teachers reject the New Comma as enslavement,
radical intellectuals embrace it as progressive;
politicians are on both sides; the Literary Academy
stays audibly silent; few people master the rules,
and everyone is confused.

That explains why, if you read them carefully,
Danish translators’ resumes, such as that of Sten
Hedegård Nielsen, say things such as: “…and I
am one of the very few who master both Danish comma
systems.”

The Danes could certainly learn a little
something from us Americans who have proudly
replaced those messy commas, semicolons, colons,
periods, parentheses and the occasional question
mark with the always-correct em dash —

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Small Discussions

Jens Winther expands on an unexpressed argument in my over-titled “Web as Utopia.” I wrote: “I can’t defend the following so I’ll just state it: we humans are at our best when we are involved with others.” Jens writes:

I agree. And I also believe that it is possible to defend this statement: Communication is the very core of what being social is all about. Take away communication in all conceivable variants and it becomes impossible to talk of sociality. The Web is built on the notion of connectivity and communication, and we mainly experience this as different bits, pieces and other shapes of hyperlinked text.

He continues by asking what’s special and formative about this special place, and concludes by raising the question of reliability, which I think is actually a variation on the question of authenticity that has launched a whole bunch o’ blogthreads.

The previous day’s blog reflects on Michael O’Connor Clark‘s. Jens writes that he likes the pursuit of new Web metaphors:

I believe that there’s room (!) enough on the Web for all sorts of efforts to conceptualise what’s going on however confusing they might turn out to be. The more the merrier I’d say.

Me, too. And I’m merry to have run into Jens’ blog.

Jacob Shwirz sent me an email to see if I was bothered by his comments on my book. He integrates some of the book’s ideas into his own way of thinking. Bothered?? How could I be anything but delighted?

Just got a pretty good review in Wired, and a wonderful mention by James Fallows in The Atlantic online.

Daily Hebrew

Jacob Shwirz over at FuzzyBlogic is looking for someone to commit to translating his father’s blog from Hebrew to English. His father is the main NY correspondent for Ha’Aretz, the Israeli newspaper. Sounds like it’d be a voice worth hearing. (Unfortunately, my Hebrew is limited to “Hag shameach” and “Lo ani.”)

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For Halley

The Eye-Mote
Blameless as daylight I stood looking
At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown,
Tails streaming against the green
Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking
White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,
Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves

Steadily rooted though they were all flowing
Away to the left like reeds in a sea
When the splinter flew in and stuck my eye,
Needling it dark. Then I was seeing
A melding of shapes in a hot rain:
Horses warped on the altering green,

Outlandish as double-humped camels or unicorns,
Grazing at the margins of a bad monochrome,
Beasts of oasis, a better time.
Abrading my lid, the small grain burns:
Red cinder around which I myself,
Horses, planets and spires revolve.

Neither tears nor the easing flush
Of eyebaths can unseat the speck:
It sticks, and it has stuck a week.
I wear the present itch for flesh,
Blind to what will be and what was.
I dream that I am Oedipus.

What I want back is what I was
Before the bed, before the knife,
Before the brooch-pin and the salve
Fixed me in this parenthesis;
Horses fluent in the wind,
A place, a time gone out of mind.

Sylvia Plath

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Stock Items

Gary Unblinking Stock reminds us that the new mnftiu is out. The last panel is as close to the truth as we’re ever going to hear. This is the Oedipal complex that may end the world. (And beyond the Bushes’ little Greek tragedy, there’s the mythic Oedipal struggle among the world’s three religions. Oy veh, don’t get me started!)

Gary also sends us to a lightly amusing site that will transform your wimpy email messages and blog entries into rip-roarin’, flame-breathing flames.

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Who’s Not an Anti-Semite

Here are some people who are not necessarily anti-Semites. Someone who…

… criticizes Israel

… thinks that Jews are especially smart

… thinks that Jews aren’t going to heaven because they don’t accept Jesus as their savior

… believes that the Jewish belief that we’re the “chosen people” tends to make us smug and self-righteous

… thinks that Jews are good with money

… thinks that Jews are clannish

… is uncomfortable talking about religion with a Jew

… thinks orthodox Judaism is sexist

… thinks orthodox Jews in their black coats and funny hats are just plain weird

… thinks the Palestinians have been oppressed

… on Yom Kippur asks us how our seder was

… thinks that Paul Newman doesn’t look Jewish

Some of those beliefs are wrong (IMO) and some are hurtful. So what? Jew haters are my enemies but lots of people who hold to some of those beliefs may be my strongest allies or my best friends. If we can’t tell the difference, we’re never going to get anywhere. Calling someone an anti-Semite (or a racist, or a sexist, etc.) poisons the well of conversation. We should — IMO — save it for our actual enemies.

That’s how it seems to me, anyway.

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We’re with you, Halley

Top Ten Reasons To Witness Your Dad’s Demise.

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Too Many Small Pieces?

Chris Pirillo mentions my book right at the top of his massively circulated Lockergnome newsletter. Thanks, Chris.

By the way, I enjoyed Eric Norlin’s spirited defense (I think that’s what it’s called) of Chris’ deciding to offer collections of tips and so forth for electronic download for $5 per tome. Some creeps have been calling Chris names for this, including someone who posted a parody of Lockergnome. I’d give you the link but it’s just not funny (unlike the insanely clever “Gluetrain” parody a couple of years ago). It also paints orthodox Jewish sideburns on Chris’ caricature. Yeah, that’s real funny.

CIO Insight has a positive, brief review of the book. It begins: “The foremost problem with books about technology is that they are deadly dull. Not this one…”

Programming guru Ed Yourdon “highly recommends” “Small Pieces.” In return, Small Pieces issued a press release highly recommending Ed Yourdon. Because there’s no permalink to Ed’s writeup, I quote it here in full:

I’m in the midst of reading David Weinberger’s new book, Small Pieces, Loosely Joined: a Unified Theory of the Web. Weinberger is the editor of a Webzine called JOHO, as well as a co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto. He’s one of the most thoughtful, amusing, and literate writers on the techno/society scene, and I highly recommend his new book. When I finish reading Small Pieces and digest its subtle messages and recommendations, I’ll write a more detailed review; in the meantime, I suggest that you hustle down to your nearest book store (either in “real” space or virtual space) and get yourself a copy.

If I were capable of shame and/or modesty, I’d be blushing right now.

Burning Bird, on the other hand, writes:

May I be the first to go online and say that I don’t give a shit about David Weinberger’s Small Pieces Loosely Joined?

Sorry, Burning, but the first person to go online not giving a shit about Small Pieces was a Ms. Madeline McMurray who has yet to mention it at all.

My favorite comment in the discussion thread on Burning’s site comes from Karl who writes “But as for the book…well the relentless hype has beaten me.” Relentless hype? Karl, I sent review copies to the people on my blogroll and maybe five or six of them have written something. Someone quick reinforce Karl’s Hype Annoyance Filter!

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MiscLinks

David Wasser points us to an interesting article on blogs in The Forward.

Gary Lawrence Murphy sends along some coverage of a new HBO reality show…

…called “Candidate 2012.” The show promises to make an anonymous person, who must be between the ages of 24 and 29, a legitimate candidate for the President of the United States in the year 2012. The joke that “if Bush Jr. can become President, anyone can” is being taken seriously by a corporate machine that knows what the public wants and intends to deliver us our first “Real World” MTV rock star President.

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