Tuesday 16th January 2007
by christo
Is the connected generation too easily abandoning the individual for the wisdom of the crowd?
… collective online creations like Wikipedia have made the Web less expressive by absorbing the efforts of hordes of volunteer authors into an overly regularized scheme. I miss the challenging quirkiness of Web sites that have fallen into neglect since the rise of Wikipedia. It’s a shame to see the Internet world increasingly diffracted by a single organizing principle, when the whole point of the Web for me is to experience the strangeness of other points of view. (I find blogs and other recent online fads both overly structured and too transient to replace the odd, revelatory worldviews laid bare in the original generation of Web pages.) – Digital Maoism Revisited – Jaron’s World HT: Kenny, for bringing this article to my attention)
Does this question even matter?
This is a tricky subject, because I think there is something to it, but I’m not quite satisfied with the analysis set forth by Jaron and others. Wikipedia does open up new opportunities for the individual to play a great role in society. Does the form of that contribution, the homogeneity of it, the appearance of it as the thought of the crowd, detrimentally diminish the agency of the individual? I don’t think so.
I find it easy to abandon the discourse of the individual versus the crowd, because the individual appears to me to matter as much to the crowd as the crowd to the individual. They are equal wholes. And then again, that is also why I am interested in the subject. I don’t want to see the individual annihilated in the crowd, nor the crowd annihilated in an individual.
Jaron interests me on the subject of congealing forms. The form of the computer, with files, directory hierarchies, windows, binary, style/content splits, these things and more seem to be forms that are curiously accepted as if inalienable. Again, this may be challenged. Nintendo’s Wii shows that a commitment to the forms of speed, graphics power, and the joystick controller can be successfully challenged [1]. Wikipedia is also a challenging form – standing against Britannica.
The wisdom of crowds also has a powerful contender that remains fundamentally unchallenged. Is the lure of the charismatic leader any less potent today than yesterday? [2] I was thinking this morning about the authority of Steve Jobs and wondering what upon it is founded.
Funny how Maoism has become a buzzword for the “wisdom of the crowd” discourse, when the word could not be said out reference to one individual.
What do you think? Where does the individual fit in here in the trajectory of cyberspace and tech dev?
I’ve been thinking over the past few days that maybe the growth of the internet in forms like blogging and youtube has less to do with a desire to express oneself and more with a desire for some sort of contact – for relationship. I suppose by looking in this direction we are getting to the heart of why we feel the need to express ourselves to anyone – but I suppose as we consider self-expression we also have to consider just who it is we think we’re talking to when we write a blog or post a photograph. I have more thoughts, but I have to run right now – the two are related I think, relationship and self-expression, like wanting to be heard and wanting to speak – related but different orientations.
Very interesting. I have never thought of it in this manner. It is something to chew over in the next few days.
But indeed, I do agree that form is beginning to rival content.
What do you do Christo? Whatever it is, you’re the man for being able to remain thinking yet working–a rarity in this age.
best,
The effects of the medium is totally worth examining, because these forms are being created as the expression is taking place. There’s appears to be a real convergence taking place between form and content – not that there wasn’t a connection before, but now there appears to be little lag time between the two – the form is becoming as dynamic as the content.
I find this all extremely interesting and need some time to formulate a proper response. Like you say there seems to be good weight to pull on both sides of the crowd/individual debate – on the one hand there is the general mediocrity of the crowd in the blogosphere but also the affirmation of the value of the individual’s perspective by the very fact that a blog for some guy (let’s call him Thomas C, in Cloverdale, BC) exists, and is read by others.
The issue of “congealing forms” also interests me. Is this explosion of self-expression simply the result of an overflow that has sat simmering within us all, waiting for the proper outlet? Or has the triumph of youtube and the blogosphere simply altered ways that we were already expressing ourselves? As the internet becomes an increasingly dominant means of self-expression the effects the medium has on that self expression is worth examining – we already see our self-expression as having increased value when it is conveyed through technology. “You” weren’t Time’s person of the year ten years ago – but I’m sure you still had something to say.