The internet is insane. One talks not to bodies, but to bundles of texts. And these texts talk back. And fuck if they don't get mad.
Why is the internet not conducive to interpretative charity, hermeneutic generosity of you will? Or to say it another way, why is it so difficult to be excellent to one another when we are disembodied? Now, it's not impossible, just as it's not impossible to imagine that the car that cut me off really was going somewhere more important than I was - it's doable, but it's difficult. Much more difficult than being decent to a stranger who happens to occupy a barstool next to me. The stranger on the barstool next to me is a fellow traveler - a kinsmen - one in spirit. The relationship is one of solidarity predicated on actual, lived space. The comments responding to posts on the internet are combative, always seeking contradiction, looking for an "aha, gotcha asshole" moment so the entire piece can be subsequently dismissed.
Since it is quite clear that we will live not just two, but multiple lives, we have to learn to transcend this new space thoughtfully, we need to develop a deep ecology, cautiously leaving behind virtual footprints.
great question. I always find my self wanting to bestow great props on the blogs I read but the conspicuous absence of tone always makes me second guess how the author is going to take it. I think damn this looks like hyperbole, their going to think I'm such a ass, but I'm actually being sincere.
ReplyDeleteWhats funny about this fear is that I'm totally favoring speech over writing. Man, Derrida would have a field day. But it's real. I just cant get over the fact that I always think that people are going to misread what I write.
I think I'll always be most comfortable in one on one conversation. But I get more pleasure, in lots of ways, out of sitting down and writing. I love the way writing allows me to see what I think, often for the first time about a subject.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, voice is weird in a text-based environment. It certainly emerges and eventually after I've read enough of someone's writing, just like with a book, I have my version of their voice in my head. But it's trickier because I have to be more sensitive in order to pick up the volume of someone's writing.
I think it's very simple. People do it because they can. They escape the hum-drum world they occupy in their little cubicles and go out into the world of the interweb (my fave name for this at the moment) and become the ugly troll under the bridge who scares all the children as they walk by.
ReplyDeleteSimply because they can.
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