Yes, we will, but you see, as Carrol used to point out, we are, for once, in need of leaders. Writing books, analysis, meta-analysis… that’s all good. But when it comes to implementing the conclusions, the prescriptions, we need these writers and analysts to serve as an example of the solution, not of the problem! To put it simply, having best understood and described the problem of “archipelagos”, why isn’t Jodi Dean working to unite the left blogistan? (or perhaps she is, I don’t know…).
On Mar 29, 2011, at 2:38 PM, Eric Beck wrote:
> The whole thesis is silly, even sillier coming from someone who runs a
> very popular blog. Blogs don't exist as individual things any more
> than people. Leftists and critical theorists really need to ditch this
> lazy way of approaching things. Individualism can't and doesn't exist
> in a world in which each of is criss-crossed by hundreds or thousands
> of institutions and strata: cities, states, courts, corporations,
> districts, commissions, boards, authorities, etc. The problem isn't
> individualism or not enough organization. As Foucault said, we are
> governed too much. But even that's not accurate. We are governed
> poorly (or too well, depending on your perspective, I guess). The
> problem isn't a lack of institutions, but their general suckiness.
And the institution in the case of blogs would be what… Technorati? Google search? Pingback/Trackback? IETF/W3C? OpenDirectory? I don’t get it. I mean, I get your general point about suckiness of existing institutions, but really, I don’t get how that applies to blogs, and the simple fact that blogs are more useful as online communities with large readership and participation, than as individual islands (or archipelagos), which are at best linked via pingbacks and off-line mentions.
—ravi