St. Augustine's Two Cities [Revised, 2nd Ed.]

If The Digital Emperor Has No Clothes, maybe it is time that we find them for him (or being forced to be politically correct, "her"). Andrew Keen, Stephen Colbert, and myself are all "elitist" because we worry about UGC. As stated nicely by Keen,

"I’ll always trust the expertise of a Harvard professor over an anonymous blogger or a high school Wikipedia editor. And if that makes me a believer in an elitist meritocracy, then so be it."

I thought to myself a minute about that quote, and realized the implications: we are breeding a dumb generation. The reason for this is simple: knowledge is passed from one generation to the next (look at history, the winner's always [re]write the books). Living in the ADD Generation , we want our answers NOW, not in 10 minutes. We want to find them as quickly as possible (INTERNET). Wikipedia, though "outlawed" by many academic institutions, is becoming the standard for fast, useful information (that has potential to be inaccurate) [as a side note, I find it funny that this is being written right next to the "Wikipedia Widget" I have on my sidebar on my blog, and have purposefully titled -- as a joke -- "The ACADEMIC Search"]. We are heading to a dangerous place...

So where else are we headed? We are headed, like St. Augustine of Hippo wrote about, Two Cities (though not of Man nor God):

The Over-Idealistic City:
According to websites and blogs such as Changemakers and Fatdoor's Blog, social networking and capitol should be that warm fuzzy feeling that one gets when they realize that their Blackberry just connected to a place to donate money to a homeless organization (because they saw 7 people on a block looking for change). Then, I'll get a text message that Edna, age 85, who doesn't have enough money to provide for her medications, needs help moving out. So I will high tail it over there to help her out once I leave the soup kitchen, where I was working. Then, I can go to Rethos.com and use social networking to find non-profit organizations. Ah, the power of the liberals in us all! Let's all go make a difference!

The REAL City:
Are you serious? Let's be honest, this is America: we only care about our self-serving interests and needs and do not understand the economic ramifications of spending an extra 50¢ on guacamole at Chipotle instead of helping a homeless person to get a meal, which could save his/her life, and in turn who could possibly save another's life (and thus pay it forward mentality). What? Edna needs help moving out? Edna is not in my family and just had a hip and knee replacement? I'm not helping her out, but I SURE will help out Cristina, the 26-year old hot Mexican girl who is trying to move in and has a sexy accent. I'll even make her food for her moving in...and what? she doesn't have a boyfriend (and I'm single)? Then I am DEFINITELY helping her move in. Bye Edna...

Now that I'm done reflecting society while sounding like a self-loathing a-hole, it really is truly sad. Change is inevitble, and hopefully it is to a place where education, helping out one's neighbor (regardless of looks, etc.), helping out the poor (but the whole "you can feed a man for a day, but if you teach him how to fish he'll have food for the rest of his life...and sit in a boat and drink beer" philosophy). It might very well be that the Internet, UGC and social networking, as attractive as it all sounds, will be our very destruction. I'm interested to see how others feel...

Exceptions To The "Rules"...

There was one point in one of the articles with which I could not get myself to agree. Charles Kadushin, in talking about distance between nodes, wrote "Though I am well enmeshed in a given group, I have one friend across the country who is a member of another well clustered group." Then, as a footnote, one can find, "Whether this friend is a close friend or someone I do not know very well is part of the 'strength of weak ties'...that is, someone I am not close to." (Kadushin, 12) First off, that point seems to render itself useless at first glance: "...a close friend..." and then "'strength of weak ties'...that is, someone I am not close to." Some of my close friends come from across the country or do not live in near proximity to myself. I have friends who go to schools such as in Delaware, and though that is only a couple hours north, we have remained close. To say something such as since he lives a few hours away, I don't affect his circle -- which is what these passages seem to indicate -- are preposterous. Some of my best friends go to schools in Boston (8 hour drive away from me) and in Virginia (several hours away). Is that to say because we are not in the same "neighborhood" that the connections are weak? Together we all form a strong network, all playing as central people in a mutual relationship. Another person in this group lives in Atlanta and goes to school nearby (a 10 to 11 hour drive), and is that to say that they are on the peripheral level? Absolutely not. I am closer with some of the people now that they are NOT in my neighborhood as compared to when they were. We all live in different neighborhoods.

One could say that because of the Internet we have all remained close, but that would be a lie too. Though we use instant messenging clients, email, and VOIP (including video chat), we mainly have phone conversations. But this is subject for another post...

I don't believe though, that I am the only exception to the rule...

Cross, Rob, Nitin Nohria, and Andrew Parker. "Six Myths About Informal Networks -- and How To Overcome Them." MIT Sloan Management Review 43, 3(2002): 69.

Kadushin, Charles. "Introduction to Social Network Theory." 17 Feb 2004 1-60. 09 Sept 2007 .