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Every now and them something bright, clean and optimistic
seems to show itself through the shifting fogs of repressive nonsense. Sometimes
the ugly honking of professional liars dies down. For a while real life
takes over. As it should of course.
It has become so easy to ignore the liars and find things
out for ourselves. Or at least identify those many areas of uncertainty which
the liars claim to be certain. Isn’t it easy to find worthwhile comment on
virtually any issue? Isn’t it noticeable how rarely many of us go to the mainstream
media for worthwhile comment?
So what does it all
mean?
I don’t know.
Then what is the point
of this post?
Simple – you can go elsewhere can’t you? Click. I am not a
guru and neither are you. We don’t need them do we - you and I?
That’s the point – we are breeding vast numbers of savvy
people, far more than we ever had before. Folk who don’t always have the facts
and the arguments at their fingertips, but in one sense they know far more than
most people knew only twenty years ago. Not only that, but they know how to flesh
out anything of interest with a click or two.
This quiet upheaval seems to have upset the old paternalistic
way of doing things, the assumptions about managing people, about politics,
democracy, who tells and who listens. Who tells these days? Who listens?
Old style class rule with its unidirectional media cannot
deal with it. Millions of savvy people are now collectively smarter than the
elites because they are connected, interested, experienced and capable. The
elites don’t have time to be interested or capable. They only have time to suck
the teat of their sponsors. They think savvy can be dealt with by opinion
surveys.
They muddle through by listening to a host of special
advisers who do have the time to become passably savvy, but there are only a
few of them while there are vast numbers of savvy folk out there – a host of virtual
polymaths unrestricted by national boundaries.
Out there on the web are millions of years of personal experience.
Think about that for a moment – millions of years of personal experience all
available for sharing.
The old ways are creaking and the elites and their sponsors are
furiously attempting to wind back the clock with a plethora of prohibitions,
narratives, entertainments and controlling policies. Anything to keep the virtual
polymaths at bay. It’s a strange, subterranean battle.
5 comments:
But still follow the money.
Demetrius - the trouble is there is so much of it and it moves so fast.
Out there on the web are millions of years of personal experience. Think about that for a moment – millions of years of personal experience all available for sharing.
Just posted on similar.
No doubt the politicos and big biz know exactly what they are up to, self interest and self preservation are the games to play. What a few blogs and commenters think is IMHO irrelevant, what matters is the bulk market and the approval of lobbyists, spads and so on. Cherchez la monnaie and the likes of Guido.
We may be seeing a splitting of the traditional bulk votes and possibly a reduction in safe majorities but the big parties can afford to starve out the little parties. The little parties that survive will learn the old tricks of the trade. Eventually I suppose repeated coalitions will lead to hybrid adaptations of the old parties along with a few 'sports' (as they say in gardening circles). I fear little will actually change.
James - I'll pop across.
Roger - I don't think things will change in the short to medium term, but political parties have credibility problems which seem intractable.
These problems may be indicators of a trend. Guido came from nowhere very quickly and others may follow. Local versions could spring up too. Who knows?
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