This is an extraordinary interpretation of the suggestion that societal position determines politics. From such a starting position it is impossible to reach a sensible conclusion about anything.

Extraordinary? It’s a paraphrasing of your suggestion, but it’s not an extraordinary interpretation. The degrees I referred to allow for greater latitude in personal political perspectives than your suggestion does.

Apologies if my introduction of the “internet” into your quote offended. There was a gap in the sentence that left it nonsensical, the discussion was about the internet.. I jumped to a conclusion.

There are degrees of selfishness and closed-mindedness in everyone’s political perspective.

This is an extraordinary interpretation of the suggestion that societal position determines politics. From such a starting position it is impossible to reach a sensible conclusion about anything.

Why? Because you don’t even understand the extent to which you own position is determined by your class interest. So you are likely to see the common conversation as inevitably coalescing around your outlook.

I said this

There is a mistaken view that the is some kind of nirvana of decency and consensus that we could all arrive at. But those who hold that view really think it means everybody coming to the same conclusions as them.

You changed it to this.

There is a mistaken view that the [internet] is some kind of nirvana of decency and consensus that we could all arrive at. But those who hold that view really think it means everybody coming to the same conclusions as them.

My point was not specific to the internet. So please don’t misquote me. It’s hard enough defending the things I actually say!

All true but ones political perspective id not determined as much by information as it is by ones place in society.

There are degrees of selfishness and closed-mindedness in everyone’s political perspective.

Just because we have more information and wider discussion does not mean we will have agreement.

No-one, myself included, or that I’ve linked to, is talking about agreement.. the point is the common conversation.

There is a mistaken view that the [internet] is some kind of nirvana of decency and consensus that we could all arrive at. But those who hold that view really think it means everybody coming to the same conclusions as them.

No-one who’s been on the internet for longer than an hour could continue to regard it as a nirvana of decency and consensus.

And, once again, it’s not about the conclusions, it’s about the common conversation.

The lack of politics in the real world of NI is precisely because our politicians aren’t doing it surely?

Slugger feels more like an ‘academic’ (without always having the accompanying standards) talk shop, since no one locally can make any decisions over the subject of our conversations.

There’s something in the safety valve idea, I wouldn’t discount it. But judging from the small but steady flow of complaints I get from various ‘establishments’ – I’d say it causes its fair share of discomfort too.

One thing I’ve begun to notice is that we are starting to get fairly crude attempts at ‘spin’: ie not press releases, but emails from interest groups with a line they want us to push.

I don’t have a problem with this, since sometimes the story is genuinely interesting. Besides what I’ve tried to cultivate at Slugger is an audience that thinks and probes and will not take things at face value.

C
Besides rude attempts at spin, are likely to come unstuck since, to quote the Cluetrain once again, …the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can’t be faked.

All true but ones political perspective id not determined as much by information as it is by ones place in society.

Just because we have more information and wider discussion does not mean we will have agreement.

There is a mistaken view that the is some kind of nirvana of decency and consensus that we could all arrive at. But those who hold that view really think it means everybody coming to the same conclusions as them.

In that way they are no different to any other ideologue.

DK

True but I wonder if these communities of the crazed are just keeping people of the streets. Even this one. Something happens and we can all come here and talk about it. I certainly find I talk less politics in the real world these days.

So maybe the blogsphere may be a great safety valve for the establishment!

I think you are right to an extent, but while the UFOs have left the skies, they have been replaced by a host of other things (black ops, angels, orbs, cell-phone masts). While these too will (hopefully) die down as per the UFOs, the internet has facilitated their rise.

In short, the internet knocks down one nut and replaces him with 2 more.

That pre-dates the internet and may well survive it! NI has almost nothing to do with the internet in a political sense.”

That was the focus of my earlier question in the original post, Henry, even if I don’t necessarily agree with you that the common conversation that Brian McNair refers to will have negligible effect on politics here.

I’d also point out that, as well as the issue of the quality of the conversation, which Mick has since highlighted elsewhere, it’s important to note the other points made by Brian McNair in regard to the increasing speed of that conversation, its global reach and the wider media’s reaction.

“But none of us can assume our ideas will turn out to be the good ones”.

What constantly surprises me is which stories fly and which sink without trace. It’s not possible to forward guess.

I’ve also seen ideas floated by one camp, or school of media thought, snapped up and re-vocalised by an opposing camp months later.

I read an interesting piece recently about the effect the internet had on the UFO phenomenon. Initially it was a boon with all the enthusiasts able to contact each other but in the long run the spuriousness of each claim became manifest when exposed to rigorous examination.

Almost unnoticed the UFOs have left our skies.

The internet gives unlimited information. Those who are motivated can put their information out there but they have no control over its impact.

In Northern Ireland we’ve seen an almost pre-modern determination to stick to certain narrative

That pre-dates the internet and may well survive it! NI has almost nothing to do with the internet in a political sense. It’s too small.

But even if the internet “lowers the barrier to entry … in politics” it cannot create engaging and compelling ideas – and these will be key to creating any political worldview worth having.

That’s just nostalgia. Engaging, compelling and worth having are all in the eye of the beholder. That is old thinking where the “right” ideas could be promoted by a “responsible” media.

Because people will have information in the long run the good ideas will survive and the bad will go with the UFOs.

But none of us can assume our ideas will turn out to be the good ones.

In fairness to Jeff Jarvis and Brian McNair, while Jarvis retains an element of optimism on the role of the internet in all this, both, but McNair in particular, highlight the accompanying rise of the internet with the disaggregation of the categories of left and right rather than a causal role.

McNair’s article was interesting too in that he ties in the wider media’s repsonse to the disaggregation and the increasing speed of the flow of information to his view of the cultural chaos.. although he remains an optimist for the common conversation, as he put it, my concern is that, here, the dominant orthodoxies have been based on the savage logic of sectarian strife.

Those orthodoxies are much more difficult to de-atomise than the categories of left and right – categories which we have barely begun to refer to in our politics.. just when everyone else appears to be re-framing theirs.

I think you are being slightly disingenious there. Pete raises a number of interesting questions, not directly related to that excellent quote from the Simpsons.

Not least that in the face of complexity, there is a real danger of flight to certainty. In Northern Ireland we’ve seen an almost pre-modern determination to stick to certain narrative, rather than taking a chance on something news or investigating the anomalous.

The sharpest comment about my own biases I’ve read on or off Slugger was on the JoBlog, when someone said I put too much value on dissenters. I do put more value on dissent than orthodox consensus, precisely because this allows for (though doesn’t always give unto) complexity to arise in an otherwise ‘emulsioned’ space.

I long ago gave up wondering where this internet revolution was going to take us. As this guy said in the Guardian yesterday:

Contemporary western politics had disaggregated well before the popularisation of the the web, weblogging, or mobile phones, and the cleaving of the population to these media is as much as anything a reflection of the disaggregated character of these technologies.

Of course, while we shape technologies they go on to shape us. But even if the internet “lowers the barrier to entry … in politics” it cannot create engaging and compelling ideas – and these will be key to creating any political worldview worth having.

Ah.. another of the orthodoxies…

I hoped a little quote might kick it back up the charts and give it a second chance.

Bart: No! We have to reach people whose opinions actually matter!