May 1, 2009
On being a fool in a foreign public
Yet another important post from Ethan Zuckerman. He’s working through what it takes to connect with others who are unlike us, and why the Internet has not done much of a job replacing airplane tickets as the way to learn to love difference. Most of the post — which proceeds by telling several stories — puts it in terms of the value of dorkiness. But at the end, Ethan expresses its fuller form: We have to be willing to be a fool in public — and a foreign public, in this case — if we are to forge the bonds that will let us love the difference in others. And all I’d add to this magnificent post is that (it seems to me) in the moment we let ourselves become the fool, we acknowledge the dignity of the place, and we become the foreigner in a homeland.
