Eva,
I'm not sure whether "optimism" is the right word for my attitude, but I
base my enthusiasm for the internet on a few phenomena --
the internet has been very powerful for spreading information and serving as
a platform for a lot of people working on alternative development
strategies, ranging from community currencies through the mobilization
against the WTO in Seattle. Baiscally I've seen a lot of community weaving
occur via the internet, linking people into synergetic relationships that
wouldn't have ever come into existence without it. I don't think this
process has fully developed -- although it could go any number of different
paths -- who knows what international cultural movements lie ahead, what
processes of development of internationalist consciousness, a question
toward which Bourdieu, for example, has increasingly turned his attention.
But . . . since you posed your question this morning, I have been thinking
about it and realize that I probably don't have any good reason at all to
be optimistic about the future of human world as we know it within the next
50 or 100 years. Not for me personally because I'll probably be dead
before it gets really bad and I've already lived a long time. But one
thinks of the generations that follow. This line of thought led me to
consider telling my son to forget about going to college to major in math
and music with the intention of teaching high school because it would make a
lot better sense, given the inevitability of the ecological disaster, that
he use his college money to buy a small rancho in the andean foothills on
the northern coast of Peru and study integrated farm management He'd
probably be OK with that once he realized that he could still have internet
access. When thinking about my kids I don't know if I have an alternative
to hopefulness (if not optimism)
I'm really more concerned with pushing the envelope out--since it isn't
necessarily impossible that the process of ecological deterioration be
slowed down and reversed, it is possible. I think that the communicative
affordances of the internet are very important for pursuing that
possibility. If that's optimism, OK.
Paul H.Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Eva Ekeblad <eva.ekeblad@ped.gu.se>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2000 9:02 AM
Subject: The positive side
> At 22.41 -0800 0-01-15, Paul Dillon wrote:
> > But there is a positive side: I don't think
> >the full effect of the internet has been felt yet--especially the
> >communication and coordination that it affords non-hegemonic voices--or
the
> >simple effect of its globalization of culture.
>
> Yes, I've been wondering since this morning what you base this on, Paul.
> >From where I am -- which is a place where I have good water, plenty to
eat,
> telephone, net access, and tons of education -- I still do not expect much
> good from the "full effect" of the Internet, if I may extrapolate my
> intuitions. Where do you get your optimism?
>
> e.e.
>
> eve.ekeblad@ped.gu.se
>
>
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