Spring Break
Dear The Commentator
From Professor Butler Shaffer
Issue date: 1/1/01 Section: Opinion
December 2007
Jeff Aidikoff’s [Nov. 2007] article on Ron Paul’s Internet successes should make us aware of the broader implications of the decentralizing processes that are transforming traditional, vertically-structured systems into horizontal networks of relationships.
Throughout society, technological changes – such as the Internet, cell-phones, fax machines, and the like – are increasing, exponentially, our capacities for accessing and decentralizing the flow of information.
With over one billion personal computers and some twenty-two million blogsites throughout the world, we are well into what can be considered the fourth – and most prolific – stage of the “information revolution.”
In ways that were previously more limited individuals enjoy autonomous and bilateral communications with others.
Those whose thinking remains stuck in the model of vertical, top-down systems, fail to understand how such technological capacities generate spontaneous, horizontally-based energies no one’s central direction and control. As a consequence, political candidates are increasingly having to face real questions from ordinary people, rather than those concocted by campaign officials and given to selected stooges to ask in make-believe“debates” and “town-hall” meetings.
FEMA’s recent fake “news conference,” in which FEMA employees pretended to be reporters asking questions of FEMA authorities, was a fitting contrast to the open and honest nature of the Internet.
It is little wonder that, when her husband was still president, Hillary Clinton called for a “gatekeeper” for the Internet, so as to preclude just anyone from putting information into this powerful channel.
“Mainstream” thinking and behavior – defined for us by the established media and other traditional unidirectional information systems – is being challenged in various settings, and this is producing the decentralization of society.
In the realm of politics, the Ron Paul phenomenon is a reflection of such dynamics. It is an enigma to those who are
unable to grasp the self-organizing nature of societies.
Jeff Aidikoff’s [Nov. 2007] article on Ron Paul’s Internet successes should make us aware of the broader implications of the decentralizing processes that are transforming traditional, vertically-structured systems into horizontal networks of relationships.
Throughout society, technological changes – such as the Internet, cell-phones, fax machines, and the like – are increasing, exponentially, our capacities for accessing and decentralizing the flow of information.
With over one billion personal computers and some twenty-two million blogsites throughout the world, we are well into what can be considered the fourth – and most prolific – stage of the “information revolution.”
In ways that were previously more limited individuals enjoy autonomous and bilateral communications with others.
Those whose thinking remains stuck in the model of vertical, top-down systems, fail to understand how such technological capacities generate spontaneous, horizontally-based energies no one’s central direction and control. As a consequence, political candidates are increasingly having to face real questions from ordinary people, rather than those concocted by campaign officials and given to selected stooges to ask in make-believe“debates” and “town-hall” meetings.
FEMA’s recent fake “news conference,” in which FEMA employees pretended to be reporters asking questions of FEMA authorities, was a fitting contrast to the open and honest nature of the Internet.
It is little wonder that, when her husband was still president, Hillary Clinton called for a “gatekeeper” for the Internet, so as to preclude just anyone from putting information into this powerful channel.
“Mainstream” thinking and behavior – defined for us by the established media and other traditional unidirectional information systems – is being challenged in various settings, and this is producing the decentralization of society.
In the realm of politics, the Ron Paul phenomenon is a reflection of such dynamics. It is an enigma to those who are
unable to grasp the self-organizing nature of societies.
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