I could understand how my comments could have been interpreted
to some extent as idealistic; although youth probaly didn't have
much to do with it. I visited your website and your preample
articulated what I was attempting to point out:
"The pursuit of learning is founded on contradictory and elitist
premises (Lave & Packer, 1991). Those contradictions go back as
far as Plato's dialogues, where Socrates seeks to distinguish
between the carpenter's interest in the triangle and the
Mathematician's. Yet, we know that, today as then, the practical
is in constant dialog with the theoretical. For a society to
lose either mode is to lose both. However, we expect individuals
to exist in one sphere or the other, even if we lament the loss
of the "renaissance man" - who even in his own time, knew little
of the practical knowledge his society depended on."
For me this is the difference between being critical
theoretically and critical in practice. I feel at times we are
critical on a theoretical level, but fail to bring that
criticism into practice. That criticalness in practice was what
I was calling optimism. Looking through some of the research
various members are involved in such as the 5th D and the Gen
Tech I see as optimistic rather than pessimistic approaches.
They are not only critical on theoretical grounds, but bring
that criticism to the area of practice.
My optimism with technology is more relative than anything else.
I was initially attracted to the net because it allowed me a
greater production role than any other media. I, like you, have
big concerns of its ever increasing domination by corporations
but in relation to other avenues; books, newspapers, tv etc.
still see it liberating to a certain extent. It offers views
for many -working class, minorities etc. a voice that education,
tv, newspapers never allow to emerge. The internet is in many
ways the only medium that still allows divergent views to
surface. My optimism with the internet is directly propotional
to my pessimism with the other media including education.
Nate