Logic’s End

The lifeblood of political community!

Although a wealth of modern technology effects our lives in a myriad of ways, it fails to alter the fundamental nature of who we are as human beings. Futurists and progressives often view the adoption of said technological wonders as cataclysmic events. Thus, the rules of how we live our lives are in a constant state of flux with their philosophical interpretation of the world. Philosophically freewheeling over human nature and the principles that govern our interactions, using the blunt hammer of technology innovation, irresponsibly erodes communities.  With the advent of social media, the wave of innovation has finally broken and rolled back, uncovering a once familiar landscape that has always existed around us: a human political community.

Technological innovation is taking place today as it has throughout history. We invented fire, the wheel, the gun, the abacus, nuclear fission and other “insignificant” advances such as written language. While any of our tools can be employed in ways both beneficial and detrimental to the human condition, it’s worth highlighting they are just tools. Human choice determines how they are employed. Gadgets may be designed in ways to afford certain uses, but they do not make that choice themselves. Just as the hammer and the screwdriver do not build a house, a Twitter feed and a Facebook profile do not make an entrepreneur successful or bolster community involvement. We must choose to leverage them wisely.

If Twitter and Facebook magically manipulated human nature and morphed the principles that govern us and create supportive communities, then the way we use them would be irrelevant. Want to tweet about how many followers you have reading your tweets four dozen times a day? It wouldn’t hurt your social reputation if certain fixed human principles didn’t exist. Feel like harassing your neighbor with tweets about how you’re going to put a golf club through his front window, and then posting the pictures of yourself in the act on Facebook? Why not! After all, with all of this innovation around the rules are (no pun intended) out the window!

Understanding how to use social technology requires first comprehending what it means to live a good life within a community. Folks who live in small towns (perhaps even close-knit neighborhoods within larger cities) have the good fortune of experiencing community life amplified to its highest level. If you were out doing doughnuts in farmer Jeb’s field, you can bet that the whole town will know who did it after you tell three people. Coincidentally, such communities help discourage burglary and other malicious activities, thus fostering the development of better citizens. Life in any small town USA is often as close as one can get to a modern rendition of Aristotle’s polis (a political community that fosters the greatest conditions for human beings).

Twitter and Facebook are helping create a modern polis, right in the midst of where traditional Internet has largely failed. Want to see what’s taking place in Buffalo, NY, on any given Saturday night? Follow the #Buffalo hashtag and you will quickly be in the loop. Heard about a crime alert around town? You can bet that’s on twitter too. Curious as to what the specials are at your favorite restaurant? Chances are that venue has a presence on twitter of its own that you can check on the fly. Community events, thoughts, and opinions can all flow freely over the streams of information that are the social networks.

Indeed, the promise of the social networks is great. They are the next frontier of the digital age, a tome of knowledge in which we’ve only just read the first page. There will be dark chapters filled with misinterpretation and the gross misuse of these new social tools. We should not let that deter us from exploring their potential prudently.

A couple of things to be mindful of:  information overload (reading and producing so much information as to end up not allowing enough time to give it proper consideration and thought), and surrogate technology syndrome (using said open communication systems as replacements for real personal human interaction).

Newspapers, pubs, and town halls were once capable of supporting our political communities in a similar fashion, and they are in fact still quite useful. Twitter and Facebook are not surrogates for them–they are complements. Their use can bolster support and sustain older one-way forms of communication substantially. One skillfully word-smithed tweet may succeed in putting an otherwise obscure newspaper article or announcement right in front of hundreds of new readers. Many citizen tweeters may become educated and inspired enough to speak out at town halls and pubs. All of this while keeping everyone in their political communities honest and informed.

In the end, technology will always be defined us. Our choices make all the difference. Just as we could choose to use the gun for murder or justice and nuclear fission for mass destruction or public energy, we can likewise use social networking for community and thought development or mindless and incessant chatter. In the end the same human principles that have continued to govern and judge our use of the wheel will ultimately guide our use of social networks. Moreover, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Henry V, we each have to deal with the consequences of the choices we make as our tools come of age.

With that, I’m off to visit family in #Minneapolis!

Viewing ourselves as a nation of individuals, it’s easy to feel like we have nothing in common. Yet, with a little effort it’s truly remarkable to discover just how much we all have to talk about. When was the last time you walked into a bar or a coffee shop and struck up a conversation with a random stranger, even if it lasted for just a few minutes?

Back when I graduated High School in Pennsylvania, which really wasn’t all that long ago, I lived about 45 minutes from the nearest shopping mall in any direction. Doing something as simple as stopping in for gas meant that you were likely to run into someone you knew. Casual conversation was just a natural part of life, and I took it for granted. Then I grew up.

I went through a phase that I believe many people have shared with me at some point. It felt impossible to relate to people. Then a strange thing happened. I ran into a professor at RIT who gave me some sage advice: “You’d be surprised at how much you have to talk about with anyone” and “Get a vice, try safe one like coffee since cigarettes are on their way out now!” The coffee worked, and the rest followed. Then I read Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Tocqueville defines, in 1835, the American predicament better than anyone I’ve ever read:

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

Thus in our naivety, many of us perceive ourselves as incompatible individuals, quickly latching on to a subset of the veritable mass of prescribed opinions. It’s no wonder so many of us have a hard time building relationships at work or in leisure (myself included as a work in progress). If universal truths do exist, they’ll be found and strengthened by discussing our thoughts, establishing a common ground, forming better opinions, and for God’s sake being political. One could call that community life. That doesn’t mean discussing democrat vs republican party platform rhetoric; to me it means discussing the human condition, contemplating great questions!  Such is my lifelong battle against mainstream relativism.

Over the weekend I took the opportunity to take in a film called “State of Play” starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck. I wasn’t so much as interested in the story as I was the underlying premise, a testament to traditional journalism contrasted with the all-too-common diatribe of the new media blogging community: the idea that blogs have a distinct purpose that ought not replace nor be confused with that of traditional media.

Blogs are particularly appealing by the nature and rapidity of the material they produce. A traditional newspaper is governed by the time it takes to print and publish daily. A blog has no such governor. Its content can be delivered hourly. Couple that with targeted advertisements and page rank influence generated by frequent content and you have an Internet phenomenon.

The most significant problem with blogging, much like other modern technology, is that it is easily abused–even if the publisher is well versed in the topic at hand and writing with the best of intentions. The time governor on traditional media journalism such as newspapers goes a long way to ensure the proper development of thoughts and ideas. Unlike blogs, it’s easier to get the whole story in a newspaper and formulate a prudent response or opinion, rather than react minute-by-minute.

Thus, newspapers and traditional media, by their nature, assist readers in thinking through issues more clearly and developing more informed opinions. This is not to say that newspapers cannot be slanted, opinionated, or otherwise misused. They can be. However, the same applies to any media outlet.

Thus I arrive once more at my thesis: blogs have a purpose as newspapers and traditional media has its purpose. The purpose of blogs would seem to not be news. Blogs are a great tool for community development, something that can bring people together to communicate quickly about an issue facing a community. One example I’ve personally witnesses is http://www.stopthecap.com. People came together as a group and collectively put pressure on Time Warner.

From a business perspective, blogs can serve a purpose there too. They take forums to another level, allowing for better two-way communication between product and development teams and users. When given a common theme and thesis for their content, blogs can help develop new product offerings and improve those already in existence.

The days of blogging just to blog, the Internet diaries of the 1990′s aren’t over. They are an important part of some people’s lives, giving them a sense of purpose. However, the use of blogs in a professional environment must be a refined, targeted, and purpose-driven process. They are an excellent tool for keeping our businesses and traditional media, even our politicians, honest.