Pulling on Dave Winer’s open thread…
I like that phrase out of Sigmund Freud: “… the narcissism of small differences.” Meaning: we have (and enjoy!) the fiercest arguments with the people we most nearly agree with on everything. So I toss my carrots into the opinion stew here with the feeling that we are all pretty close on the major points. To wit: that the Dean campaign (the Clark draft, too) gave us all an exciting glimpse of a different sort of democracy–and the possibility (this year, next time and/or indefinitely into the future) is still around. The Dean phenomenon in politics, after all, was always just the visible tip of an Internet iceberg that is unquestionably transforming commerce, corporate communications, music distribution, Iranian politics, family letters home, prime-time television habits, airline ticketing and a thousand other things. And the iceberg is still moving glacially (but fast!) over the society. I think most of us agree that we like this architecture of Internet politics–its individuality and its community, its accessibility and speed and all those other good things. None of it was crushed with Dean in New Hampshire. My own particular take–and I sense lots of agreement even here–it that Big Media came out of its cave to beat Dean over the head with Kerry, and that that this is a Problem. This was not critical journalism at work, this was an industrial offensive from a declining sector of the information and intelligence business, a corporatized, overconcentrated, underventilated giant that feels itself threatened. The newsmag headlines, the network cliches about “anger,” the emptiness of the “electability” standard (which newsmags giveth and taketh away, without ever having to show evidence) and that completely mindless, truly Goebbels-esque repetition of the scream tape–all the manipulated frenzy of the last three weeks smacked of a fiercely anti-democratic bullying that I find personally, professionally and publicly offensive. I confess some naivete here. I am surprised the old devils tried it; I am surprised that they got away with it. I bought the spirit of Larry Lessig‘s complaint a month ago: “Our pathology is that we’ve become such passive political creatures that we respond to these broadcast manipulations in a way that’s totally predictable.” And I bought into Larry’s hope that something had changed in the course of 2003, that it wouldn’t happen the same old way in 2004. So we live and learn. But the main thing we’re learning is that, as Jay Rosen says, “we have the tools.” They are democratizing the world of information and opinion–yes, of journalism, whether the decrepit kings of the decaying castle like it or not. The Net is still there, and it’s still the happiest, most constructive place to be having this good conversation about real politics. The rest of my two bits is here. I’m tickled to be in on this discussion. Thanks to all, Chris Lydon
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