When I show Small Pieces Loosely connected to people who live and work (rather than focus on the Internet) they are AMAZED. What catches their attention is that there is an almost redemptive quality to its narrative that, in turn, is born from its remissiveness. The Internet is All-Forgiving. So people try things out, share, find affinities, get involves, made-do etc etc.

Now indeed this has implications for ‘the self’ — that tabernacle for self-reflective vanities we have been landed with ever since Decartes developed “Rules for the Direction of Mind” as a lad (in the hope, he said, to ‘walk confidently in life’). I might wish to muse on how I can now ‘choose to appear’ on the net. But the Net is all about the re-invention of the ‘we’. Your book says so – eloquently and in lots of interesting ways!

I would say, the Internet DISSOLVES the self, it provides an opportunity for the recovery of a person (maybe even soul). The important feature of this, is that while we muse over the many ways we may wish to portray (and authenticate) our-‘selves’, it is in the narratives produced, and the actions that follow from that, wherein our sense of personhood returns from seeing a direction to the story we have initiated — usually by virtue of people writing back, or saying thanks or getting all hot and bothered about the narrative produced. This is VERY different from the atomising experience of many modern institutions (including academia) wherein the fanfare of choice (about a range of conveniences and comfort) gives the illusion of subjective depth and presence (albeit tied to one’s credit card limit). Instead, with the web, there is massive potential for coordinated action, – so called ‘smart-mob’ — what, by the way used to be called ‘liturgy’ in another system :).

Needless to say, there are powerful forces that would not wish a return to multiplicities of affiliations loosely coordinated by symbolic powers. So the Internet has to be seen as a distribution channel, the users as consumers, and digital rights as a whole system of control to ensure ‘we’ never get to name or create much together. That will be shown to be a lie, a big lie. And many of your other writings hit this nail on the head. The ‘self’ is what makes the lie possible in part.

So when it comes to using phenomenology as an excuse for avoiding any triumphant claim, it’s a cope-out. Sure, you do not have the research that may cover your claim, but surely you can issue an invitation to something better. So maybe people are using the Internet as a quick library tool, but that misses the point. Aren’t they, in doing so, trying (albeit privately) to get out from the grip of the professional vanities that can merchandise their ignorance for profit? And once they talk to each other, then a ‘we’ makes for a person that can create a story, maybe even make some history.

Next class can, I urge more thrust on what could be — even for kids in Cambodian villages (where, btw, initiatives get thought about now, precisely because of the Internet).