Eva,
There is something about the footsteps in the appartment above that links
you to your neighbor in bonds that are much stronger than those we share
with you here. If, for example, the sounds of footsteps and vacuuming
were to change to sounds of violence, no doubt you would immediately
summon help for the person who lives there. If you awakened with the
smell of smoke surrounding your flat, no doubt you would flee your own
appartment and immediately rouse the neighbor above from her sleep. If
your landlord should take the path of neglect with the commons that you
share, it is not unlikely that you and your neighbor would join together
to confront his miserly practices. You share the same roof, the
same neighborhood markets, the same clinics, the same sewers, and the same
roads. Your neihbor may be a total stranger to you, but the notion of
community between you is a fact from multiple dimensions.
What we share in XMCA is a community of interest. For those whose role
has to do with research and writing in socio-cultural theory, perhaps this
is a semblance of a community of practice. As you point out, our hearts
and minds are linked with you ways that your neighbor cannot share. I
feel a special bond with you for the friendship you extended to me at
Aarhus. We have a common language, a Hegelian-Marxist-Vygotskian mode
of thinking that identifies this as a community distinct from the
multitude of communities that surround us. But the undeniable, vital,
unspoken commitment that you and your upstairs neighbor share is a bond
that is unknown to us in this virtual community.
I agree with Paul's assessment concerning the affordances that
network technology brings to communities of like-minded and geographically
dispursed people. The potential of the Net as a tool for organizing
communities is the most exciting prospect since movable type. But to the
extent that a community remains merely 'virtual', we find ourselves in a
simulacrum that allow us to escape the mutual commitments that you and
your neighbor cannot escape in times of urgent importance.
Martin R.
On Wed, 19 Jan 2000, Eva Ekeblad wrote:
> Hi Martin, Martin and all
>
> I should also have added that I do not count the Internet as a place-apart
> from the rest of the world and its institutions. Us XMCA subscribers are
> all embedded in our Universital institutions and all the other "stuff" that
> keeps us online and involved in CHAT. ("stuff" =
> I-get-so-tired-of-chasing-for-words-sometimes)
>
> And conversing to you Martins within "earshot" of you all, I'm in the
> Network Way much closer to YOU, than to the neighbour on the next floor,
> whose footsteps I can hear right now through my ceiling (think s/he is
> vacuumcleaning).
>
> Thanks for the radio vignettes MO.
>
> Eva
>
> At 08.08 +0100 0-01-19, Eva Ekeblad wrote:
> >Well, if I say that I do not count the Internet as ONE place, OK?
>
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 01 2000 - 01:02:30 PST