Yesterday, I posted about an op-ed by Cass Sunstein from the Washington Post. He pointed to the great potential of the wiki-type projects to solve problems in the world. He breifly mentioned some dangers as well. Here's an essay that point to even greater potential damage the digital collectivism mentality can lead to. Hint – the title says it all: Digital Maoism.
(JARON LANIER:) My Wikipedia entry identifies me (at least this week) as a film director. It is true I made one experimental short film about a decade and a half ago. The concept was awful: I tried to imagine what Maya Deren would have done with morphing. It was shown once at a film festival and was never distributed and I would be most comfortable if no one ever sees it again.
In the real world it is easy to not direct films. I have attempted to retire from directing films in the alternative universe that is the Wikipedia a number of times, but somebody always overrules me. Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected, within a day I'm turned into a film director again. I can think of no more suitable punishment than making these determined Wikipedia goblins actually watch my one small old movie.
Twice in the past several weeks, reporters have asked me about my filmmaking career. The fantasies of the goblins have entered that portion of the world that is attempting to remain real. I know I've gotten off easy. The errors in my Wikipedia bio have been (at least prior to the publication of this article) charming and even flattering.
Reading a Wikipedia entry is like reading the bible closely. There are faint traces of the voices of various anonymous authors and editors, though it is impossible to be sure. In my particular case, it appears that the goblins are probably members or descendants of the rather sweet old Mondo 2000 culture linking psychedelic experimentation with computers. They seem to place great importance on relating my ideas to those of the psychedelic luminaries of old (and in ways that I happen to find sloppy and incorrect.) Edits deviating from this set of odd ideas that are important to this one particular small subculture are immediately removed. This makes sense. Who else would volunteer to pay that much attention and do all that work? ……..
……
The collective rises around us in multifarious ways. What afflicts big institutions also afflicts pop culture. For instance, it has become notoriously difficult to introduce a new pop star in the music business. Even the most successful entrants have hardly ever made it past the first album in the last decade or so. The exception is American Idol. As with the Wikipedia, there's nothing wrong with it. The problem is its centrality.
More people appear to vote in this pop competition than in presidential elections, and one reason for this is the instant convenience of information technology. The collective can vote by phone or by texting, and some vote more than once. The collective is flattered and it responds. The winners are likable, almost by definition.
But John Lennon wouldn't have won. He wouldn't have made it to the finals. Or if he had, he would have ended up a different sort of person and artist. The same could be said about Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, Joni Mitchell, Duke Ellington, David Byrne, Grandmaster Flash, Bob Dylan (please!), and almost anyone else who has been vastly influential in creating pop music.
It is rather long, but it is worth the read. The hive mind collectivism that is popping up in various locations on the web is actually rather scary. Don't believe it? Write a blog entry that gets noticed by the artist formerly known as the Daou Report. When the swarm arrives, the spam filters go into meltdown.
UPDATE: Sorry, should have hat-tipped to Little Green Footballs for the link. Also head over there to see examples of hive mentality in action at Digg.
I disagree with the assessment that John (Lenin) Lennon would not have won since it was his own poetry in his song “Imagine” which created the collective mob mentality we face today. The collective believes with every fiber of their being in Lennon’s imaginary one world and live each day to achieve such utopia.
Take a trip to http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/blog and read the front page. Not necessarily the actual articles but rather the updates about Digg. Theoretically Digg should be a Meta for all the hottest posts around as nominated by readers. In fact, this is no longer the case because of the Lefty HiveMind Instaswarm which floods the site with “bury” hits. In effect they silence any position that does not adhere to the most strident of the nutzroot’s.
This, of course, is the Liberal version of Free Speech…you are free to speak as long as you agree!
Unfortunately, in the current atmosphere, Lennon would never have gotten to the point where he could write and publish “Imagine.”
I think that is the point here.
Yeah, I didn’t hat tip – that’s where I got the link. I’m fighting computer problems again and was luck to get even a couple of hurried posts up.
The collective mob would never had gotten to where they are today without John Lennon’s imagination. Mob mentality has always been around, it was Lennon who made it fashionably cool to be in the collective.