I suppose that 'narrowness' is a rather relative evaluation ... is xmca a
narrow-interest community? from some people's viewpoints I'm sure we are,
but for me it's been very broadening (well, interestingly broadening
anyway! :)
Imagine one goes online with an interest in French wine ... do we get
totally obsessive about French wine, and more so, and more so ...? feeding
on each other's total obsession ... or do we meet people through a common
interest in wine, and go on to chat about food, and then travel, and French
culture, and contrasts with American wine and culture, and education, and
...? I can just see the messages to xvin ... those ranging far afield and
those saying : xvin is not meant for discussions of French family life,
take them over to alt.familie ...
Perhaps we might consider internet groups to give us participation
opportunities in communities where we have entree through interest and/or
experience, where we can have a sense of belonging or wanting to belong ...
to more such communities, those defined around interests we share with few
people in our local lives, but many people in our cyberlives ... but
entrance to a community seems to me to be always an opening to being drawn
out into the lives of others, and so their interests, their viewpoints, the
domains of knowledge they bring to our common first subject ... inclining
us sometimes to seek out those domains to better understand their view of
wine, but then changing how we can see other matters, with them, or with
others ...
I doubt that the dynamics of community are ultimately convergent, no matter
how narrow or specialized the topic ... perhaps what matters more is the
larger personal agenda which brought us to the community ... if it was just
to check the latest theorems in cohomology theory [mathematics], it might
take a while to get round to other topics (but not if I know mathematicians
as people ...), but the opportunities are still there, and were not there
before. I imagine a lot of people who meet over eBay auctions of rare
stamps will eventually get married ...
It may be a value prejudice on my part, but a human trajectory that spirals
only inwards seems somewhat socially pathological. It takes a hell of a lot
of anti-social work to stay concentrated on a narrow interest, as most
researchers and specialists can probably attest! JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
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