Response To A Response To A Response: Gerbils And Tunnels And Echoes
Dean
Hmm. I seem to have annoyed Scott Ferguson. You know, the funny thing is, I never know anymore when I'm going to make someone feel defensive. Sorry Scott, that wasn't my intent.
Anyway, Scott feels I misinterpreted his piece Of Gerbils, Webs, and Aggregation. If I did it was certainly not intentional. I did read it a couple of times, and the parts that struck me most vividly--really they were the only parts I was responding to--were these:
A more serious issue with my site is the main page, which contains blog abstracts from the very liberal to the somewhat conservative, and a sampling of everything between. The feedback I've gotten (particularly from conservatives) is that this diversity is annoying. The subtext of these complaints is that they want the main page to be a comfortable affirmation of their views; so why include a blog like Daily Kos?
This "gerbil world" characteristic of the Web at once fascinates and horrifies me. As McLuhan predicted, this neural network is turning us into a society of artificial tribes, based on affinity and prejudice. While I have great affection for tribal societies (my deceased partner's family is Oglala Lakota), their cultural expression is rote; encouraging conformity and providing no support for the kind of intellectual curiosity that fosters great things.
To a person who chooses to avoid information that is not consistent with their worldview, the Web is less a tool for communication, and more a mirror for narcissistic reflection. How will this affect society over the next generation?
I don't know how old Scott is (and no, that's not condescension, it's just flat out lack of knowledge) but I well remember being a voracious reader before there was any World Wide Web, and I have to say that the tendency to limit the information people exposed themselves to was weakened by the World Wide Web far more than it was strengthened by it.
It was easy enough in the past to completely skip buying the newspaper or magazine you didn't like, or if you did buy it you could shuffle right past whatever pages you didn't want just to get to the comics or the sports pages.
Nowadays if you spend much of any time surfing the web, even if you're only looking for things that only match your tastes, you'll find an extraordinary array of material which will lead you off in new directions. And if you stumble on just one moderately active blog that strikes a chord with you, forget it--you'll be sent so far hither and yon seeing things from so many different perspectives it's dizzying.
The overall effect of the web I'm seeing today is that it broadens rather than narrows perspectives. Rather than likening people to gerbils in tunnels, I'd see a much stronger metaphor in birds who were raised in cages suddenly let free to the open skies. Maybe some of us turn into ducks who just paddle around in certain predictable ponds and migration patterns, but an awful lot of us seem to zoom off like peregrines, seeing more and doing more than we ever would have or could have before, circling the globe endlessly and never getting tired.
I don't see that much of the tribalism that McLughan described except in certain isolated areas. Free Republic and Daily Kos sure fit that description. (Also certain weblogs that seem dedicated to sending me trackbacks to tell me how stupid, wrong, or evil I am. Some of them even host semi-regular, highly entertaining threads just to kvetch about me, and a sadder group of sexually frustrated intellectual dwarfs you'll never meet. My wife keeps a few of them around as pets, though, and I do have to admit that some of them are kind of cute.)
But that gets me to something else I've noticed: even the sites which intensify tribalism, intensify the desire for people to congregate and agree with each other--which is an urge we all have at times--the web also seems to have a strong moderating influence as well. We wind up exposed to things we didn't know, challenged by them, and making choices.
I've had all sorts of people tell me things like, "You know, I thought I was a very left-wing liberal democrat... and then I stumbled onto Democratic Underground and Daily Kos. They seemed fun at first but one day, I found myself stepping backwards slowly, making soothing noises, careful not to make any sudden moves."
I've had conservatives and libertarians tell me the same thing: one day something went off in their heads and they said, "Uhm.... I'm in a crazy-people house, aren't I?" I know a number of ex-Little Green Football and Free Republic readers like that.
(Note to Charles Johnson: 1) Shut down your comment section, your wingnut contingent is scaring the sane people away, and 2) Find a muslim friend. Really man, life will be better for you. Honestly.)
And it's not just politics. I've seen it in religion, computers and computer technology, sports, the sciences.... Weblogs are the illustration, but the overall point is that I simply do not see McLuhan's vision coming true at all in the World Wide Web--neither among passive readers, random surfers, or the blogosphere. I see the exact opposite happening far more often.
Indeed, I view this concern that somehow the internet brings us into ever tinier and tinier niches and cliques, where we become gradually exposed only to that which does not challenge us, as being much akin to other fears people have that just won't go away such as overpopulation, air and water pollution, violent crime, human health, and poverty: as all of these things get better overall, most people are convinced that they're getting worse.
As I see it, the internet is helping people link up, expand their horizons, and expose themselves to new sources of information and countervailing points of view far, far more than they used to. It is not causing their worlds to become more limited and tribal at all, it's helping them make connections that were impossible before.
I think McLuhan got it exactly backwards. If mass media makes it 10% easier to constrict our worldview, it makes it 90% easier for us to expand it. And the web just raised it all to a new level.
I am an example for the gist of your case. I am one of the conservative types who can accept the excesses of Little Green Footballs, but can not tolerate the dishonesty and lack of reason found at Daily Kos. Yet, here I am at DeanEsmay.com, exposing myself to transitional views.
Keep up the good work; especially the way you keep your posts short, sweet, and to the point!
John
Oh wait, mission accomplished.
It is true that people do run in certain patterns (I guess that's the gerbil tunnels, or 'habitrails') but that has always been the case. I am not interested in crocheting, I am interested in naval history, so you'll find me in a certain area.
It isn't a bad thing - I have opinions that have formed over my life, I have tastes and interests I developed - what makes anyone think that I'm going to drop them or change them at the drop of the hat? People act like people, whether on the WWW or elsewhere. The behavior he observed isn't because of the internet, it's what happens in life.
So I think you are exactly right.
However, you did devalue and desecrate the Muslim faith by not capitalizing the word, "Muslim." I have reported this to the ACLU.
There are vast amounts of good information from a multitude of viewpoints--even if they're only 10% of total WWW content. But unless one is willing to go out and actually read opposing or differing points of view, they'd might was well be invisible.
Back when I subscribed to a lot of print magazines, i.e., before their content was largely available online, I'd split my subscriptions 50/50. Half would be things that came from where I was standing; half came from perspectives I really disliked. But I felt that I had to understand what those perspectives were, even if they were loony at times.
The "Echo Chamber", what used to be termed "mental masturbation", may provide intellectual solace, but it doesn't do a whole lot for communicating ideas.
Today, just try that on the web. It's a lot harder than it looks. Spend any time in a search engine and stuff you disagree with pops up in your face all the time. Read much political commentary, and it's filled with links to free materials that you don't agree with.
My point is that you actually have to work harder to isolate your information if you're on the web than you would if you only stuck to stuff printed on dead trees.
"It was easy enough in the past to completely skip buying the newspaper or magazine you didn't like, or if you did buy it you could shuffle right past whatever pages you didn't want just to get to the comics or the sports pages."
That's very true. There are many people who skip the editorial pages and stick to the straight news. I'm the opposite. Back in my newspaper-reading days, I always jumped to the editorial pages right after reading the front page. Of course, today, the "news" in many papers is so slanted and distorted that it's all editorials, and not good ones either.
Radio and TV are the same way. Most of my immediate family listen to NPR (which I consider to be Communist) all the time*, while others I have known listen daily to conservative talk radio.
(*One thing I've learned over the years is, don't argue politics with your family!)
Mike wrote:
"It is true that people do run in certain patterns (I guess that's the gerbil tunnels, or 'habitrails') but that has always been the case. I am not interested in crocheting, I am interested in naval history, so you'll find me in a certain area.
It isn't a bad thing - I have opinions that have formed over my life, I have tastes and interests I developed - what makes anyone think that I'm going to drop them or change them at the drop of the hat? People act like people, whether on the WWW or elsewhere. The behavior he observed isn't because of the internet, it's what happens in life."
That's very true. When I'm in a bookstore, I always gravitate first to the political section, where I usually see and look at a range of views, from Ann Coulter to Noam Chomsky, and occasionally find somebody a bit less predictable than those. I look at books on mythology, religion (Christianity mainly), and philosophy (Objectivism particularly). But, above all, the books on color and design. Everybody has his or her own interests, whether it be naval history or cooking or colors or whatever. Everybody has his or her own views on politics, religion, etc.. Everybody has his or her own sexual preferences, whether androsexual or gynosexual, and for a particular type of man or woman. That's the way we are. And we each gravitate toward that which we find most valuable. The selfish motive.
I do read books or blogs expounding views that I hate, on a "know your enemy" basis, but even then some people I enjoy hating more than others. E.g., the "fag"-haters are much more interesting than the Bush-haters. Both my preferred enemies and my preferred allies are on the Right on most spectra.
The Web, the blogosphere, hasn't changed human nature. Those who listen to NPR and read Noam Chomsky will read Kos or Atrios. Those who listen to Rush Limbaugh and read Ann Coulter will read World Net Daily or Townhall.com. I read Ayn Rand and G. K. Chesterton and E. Merrill Root and Eric Scheie's Classical Values and Dean's World (and the Queen). Anybody who thinks Dean's World is a "gerbil tunnel" or an "echo chamber" is an idiot.
Just a note on Kos, LGF, Democratic Underground, FreeRepublic, Atrios, and the like: High-traffic political blogs with comments almost always have really nasty comment sections. Mostly, I suspect, because they are all severely skewed far-left and far-right. That's what produces the traffic, of course; they're "comfortable spaces" where people proceed to "unwind" waaaay too much for their own good. Or anyone else's.
The only (partial) exception I know is Kevin Drum's "Political Animal," which has a ton of traffic but less nastiness than the above when it comes to dissenting opinions. It's a left-of-center blog, but not far left, and while there are right-wing trolls and really annoying troll-baiters, there's also serious discussion, not at all one-sided.