This blog is designed to skirt partisan politics. And in a campaign season, interesting issues may arise in a political context.
The recent CBS/Pajamaheddin-blogosphere events have been called edge-phenomena of an emergent capacity for unpredictable cooperative flow. Frederick Turner, a consistently insightful essayist, writes in TechCentralStation :
an extraordinary example of what chaos and complexity theorists call spontaneous self-organization. Out of a highly communicative but apparently chaotic medium an ordered, sensitively responsive, but robust order emerges, acting as an organism of its own. Suddenly a perfectly-matched team of specialists had self-assembled out of the ether.
And what is the structure that has made this possible? (not the infrastructure, the internet, software, etc.) It is an ongoing conversation of enough interest that people participate, return, draw in others. So that, in a situation of heightened interest or even crisis, there is social capital, accessible entry by newcomers including experts, and some structural resistance to misinformation when allegiances run high.
Part of this is the verifiability, an odd twist on the possibility of authentication, where CBS has stumbled so badly. The memos were posted on the CBS web site. In retrospect, CBS may wish it had not done this. From now on, anyone relying on documents will be questioned if they don't do it.
Thus, participants and observers are able to confirm the assertions that were made (Charles Johnson's re-creation of the memos in MSWord at default settings, and the animated demonstration of the matching features). They were able to reproduce the re-creation.
When genuine experts surfaced, it was quick and easy to check their credentials. When non-experts who spoke from experience weighed in, the substance and limits of that experience became clear.
In this sometimes-anonymous new medium, the speed, numbers, and accessibility enforce transparency. Pre-existing agendas are generally evident, like lumps in the pudding as we read, and are easy to discount. In most cases, no automatic credibility attaches, but it does accumulate. The social capital in any one connection is scant, but the sheer amount of information begins to create suggestive if shifting outlines. Even when the shapes are incomplete, they cast in question the familiar evasive patterns of old and plodding paradigms. "Trust me" vs. "See for yourself." It is an emerging recognition, not a paradigm of "Because I said so."
And, perhaps because I am a Myers Briggs ENTP, that makes me happy.
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