Comments: bobos, superiority complexes, and the commons
comment on BOBOS in PARADISE
I didn’t read the book, but I did hear David Brooks interviewed about it on Fresh Air (NPR) – so I’m appropriately qualified to comment. And, I read the Atlantic article. I find the article way too glib…he has a point but there were self-styled experts and gurus long before narrowcasting and the web gave us 256 channels + infinite discussion groups. Niches aren’t new, they are just easier to find.
His lament that we have lost unifying cultural channels is a conservative, old money (superior!) whine. I’m old enough to remember Walter Cronkite and LIFE magazine and it was a world without Daria. The mainstream got all the attention but there were plenty of lonely tributaries.
Brooks is painting a revisionist picture if he thinks that the three network past encouraged more cross-cultural fertilization than the zillion channel present. Then, as now, it required individual motivation to get out of the ruts and the loops. I’ve spent a great deal of my life looking into corners where I don’t belong, but I had to make the effort. You are right to question how or whether media (mobile, consolidated, distributed, inter, hyper, multi) can motivate these efforts.
Superiority? I’m not superior, but my cat is: My cat is better than yours. My cat is bigger than yours. My cat is goofier than yours. My cat has more issues than yours…
Posted by peggy at April 15, 2003 5:51 PM
Yeah - Brooks creates a lot of problems for himself - there are many contradictions that run through much of his work. I tend to think he probably realizes these conflicts in his arguments. I don't necessarily think that the idea that "we have lost unifying cultural channels" is a conservative / old money idea (or whine), as I think that the absolute saturation of these different media outlets has created an exponentially greater number of "lonely tributaries," and I'm not even sure a mainstream media exists in the way that it did in in the decades following WWII. I'm trying to think of a precedent for this whine in conservative ideology, and I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on this matter. Lamenting the lack of these cultral channels is certainly a way to justify looking the other way, and therefore absolve conservative policymakers. Hmm.
I don't think Brooks is trying to be a revisionist. In fact, I think that he would tend to agree with your statement that "it's just as hard now as it was then." I think however, that the saturation of online communities, etc., has created a culture in which everyone is an expert in something, and that such localized expertise makes it difficult for people to want to step outside those boundaries. I don't think this was the case in the "three network past." Back then, I don't think that everyone had the support structures to engender this "superiority" that they do now, and therefore, I think that they had less of a reason to stay within a specific group.
Anyway, these are just some thoughts. I think that what is really interesting is trying to figure out how social networks will continue to develop - do these individual clusters of networks stay closed and refuse to leverage Metcalfe's law? Or is it the opposite, (and it seems you would argue this line) that these networks, as they become more and more specific and specialized, in fact have more shared nodes, and thus create a larger, more valuable social network. For example, to use one of Brooks' examples, a specialized network of "skateboard jumpers" (a painfully out-of-touch example, by the way) may share a number of nodes with a network of "bmx street riders" who may share nodes with free ride mountain bikers, who may share nodes with cross country mountain bikers, who may share nodes with road bikers, who may share nodes with businessmen. Ok, so this is all sort of a a "six-degrees-of-separation" thing, but it may be relevant when thinking about social networked structures.
My dog is probably bigger than your cat, unless your cat is really big, like a REALLY BIG CAT (scroll down)
Thanks for the comments. I appreciate it.
Posted by will at April 15, 2003 6:45 PM
P.S. I don't necessarily mean my last comment to be a defense of Brooks, who I tend to see as sort of a conservative asshole. I do however, think he makes some decent points, and I tend to be more challenged by readings that don't necessarily fall in concert with my typical lines of thought. Again, thanks for the comments - i really appreciate this dialogue.
Posted by will at April 15, 2003 8:50 PM