I’m partial to Marx’s idea that the primary technologies of a time and place limit the available forms of social organization.
In early 20th century Russia, the dominant techs were Rail and Telegraph, inherently Center/Spoke, with no possibility for communication around the rim. This made the Party Center, ie the Moscow Office dominant.
Lenin’s centralist model was generally mimicked in the American Left, and left, for almost 70 years. Come the late ’80s, the economics of networked computing changed that.
From ’85 to ’88, just before “The Internet” became accessible, much of my effort was evangelizing various movements and organizations for Peacenet/Econet/IGC and predecessor leased nets. I’d turn up at all kinds of “National Conferences” etc. toting my NEC 8201 (1st viable laptop), and 300 baud modem to give demonstrations.
Invariably, it was a big hit with activists from local chapters, but viewed with deep fear and hostility from Titled leaders and salaried National Staff.
By ’91, all these orgs had some sort of internal online discussion going, usually email lists, and an evolution towards more empowered chapters. In this regard, the Democratic Party is running about 14 years behind.
The outward face of Organizations circa ’91 was an ftp achive or gopher, later “The” Web Page, and announcements to Usenet lists.
Nowadays the Organization is often is much less significant than the informal movement around it.
Question for the evening: Is the Blog qualitatively different from a Usenet discussion from the pre-spam days? is the Boo/Kos culture clash less about “women/s issues” than organizational model?
Ben, thanks for this. Can you elaborate on your final question: “is the Boo/Kos culture clash less about “women/s issues” than organizational model?” I’m not sure what you mean by contrasting ‘women’s issues’ with ‘organisational model’
“blogs” aren’t really blogs so much as a continuation of the old USENET, just with far superior techmology.
There was no “owner’ of the site. No “bills to pay.” No “front page posters.” All posters were created equal.
Underlying the pie ad debate was the inherent tension between “blog owner” and “community.”
I’m beginning to think this tension is the limiting factor on the scalabilty of the blog model.
If kos had been just another poster, his foot in mouth would have drawn derision, but not the same level of angst.
The sexual politics level is real, but not the driving force in the dispute, which is really an unequal Class Strugle, between the Owner of the Means of (re)Production, and the Producers of original textstrings.
Actually, although it was much cruder, I never saw a group that didn’t have a cabal 😉
There were some posters with much more mojo and influence than others – and their mojo was enforced against people who failed to toe the line by the flames of that cabal – all unofficial, of course.
You are absolutely right that if Kos were just another poster this issue wouldn’t be a big blow up.
But I think that the issue itself IS important to many of us and his dismissal ( and “if you don’t like it leave” ) message to us from his position of power pretty much determined which wat the site was going.
That said, I have seen exactly the same thing happen with with depressing regularity on usenet, with the rebels leaving and starting a competing group .
I’ve got a lot to say about this but (darn it all) I don’t have the time right now. Resource allocation implies unitary utilization to the information and communication infrastruture. (i.e., my wife needs to use the internet 🙂
Quickly put, the communication modes and means are oft in conflict with organizational power structures.