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participate, don't spectate

more quotes for web 2.0 thinking .... 

from Subcomandante Marcos:

"The revolution, in general, is no longer imagined according to socialist patterns of realism, that is, as men and women stoically marching behind a red, waving flag towards a luminous future. Rather it has become a sort of carnival."

from Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, Indiana University Press, 1984:

"Carnival does not know footlights, in the sense that it does not acknowledge any distinction between actors and spectators. Footlights would destroy a carnival, as the absence of footlights would destroy a theatrical performance. Carnival is not a spectacle seen by the people; they live in it, and everyone participates because it's very idea embraces all the people."

will your web 2.0 revolution embrace all the people in its very idea?

will i have no choice to participate in your revolution because there will be no real boundry between you and i?

how will i know i'm safe enough to be swept up in this revolution? not everyone wants to be swept up in the carnival and history has shown them getting run out of town more than once.

what are the floodlights of the current technology revolution? cost? lack of knowledge? fear of change?

what destorys the floodlights? open source? communities? shared knowledge like a wikipedia? this here blog?

will we get rid of the notion of putting on a show for users and realize that we are the used and the using ... that we want to access the type of show we want, when we want it, and possibly even be the show.

Comments

on being a spectator

putting on a show is easier than being the show.

talking about this project with co-workers a while back, someone mentioned that the idea of blogging, of putting up thoughts for everyone to see, inevitably led to questions - what do i have to say that's of any importance? why should i broadcast?

it comes naturally to some, it's becoming more natural for kids brought up with the internet (damn, i wish i'd been brought up with the internet instead of tv), but even for a cheerleader of participatory technology, it's so much easier to stay on the sidelines.

delusions are inexhaustible.
even when you believe that people should share, that keeping your thoughts trapped is an act of selfishness, it's still easy to tell yourself that people broadcast out of ego. when really, the less ego there is, the easier it is let your thoughts out. no worries of - is this right? is this interesting? will anyone even read this? will anyone care?

and i paraphrase a wise woman:
"to those who ask 'who am i to do something significant?', i say 'you are a child of the universe. who are you not to?"

check this

check this out:

http://www.netsquared.org/blog/eweinb04/nonprofit-blog-carnival-1

it's a blog carnival!!! 

-------------------------------------------------
Erin Denny aka "Handy"
erin@techsoup.org

well put.

well put.

ok, so, because i'm a geek i couldn't help but look it up. so here it is, with my "universalizing" it a bit.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be! You are a child of the universe. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the light that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Marianne Williamson (Often attributed to Nelson Mandela)

and if we think of bloggers as liberating truth ... well, that give me hope for the future of our world for sure.

-------------------------------------------------
Erin Denny aka "Handy"
erin@techsoup.org

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